Bidding in Competition
The original impulse for this web page came from a manuscript of bridge pointers set down 20 years ago, a few pages of which made their way to the ACBL Bulletin. Indeed, I was simply going to type out the book. That way, I wouldn't have to think! However, the advent of OKBridge and the capability it offers of going over the exact bidding and play of any hand that strikes my fancy has changed the original calculus, such that probably half the hands come from this source, and that percentage can only grow. [It's probably closer to 85 to 90% now -- Oct 2002.] This has also brought a couple of new topics to my attention, one of which is bidding in competition, or rather, the sheer recklessness many display when bidding in competition, a recklessness they don't seem to display in uncontested bidding.
I have seen a player make a weak jump overcall, vulnerable, on a 10-high six-card spade suit, and when his partner raised him one level, continue with a raise of his own to a richly deserved minus 1100 at four spades doubled. I have seen a player with 7 hcp's give a negative double opposite an opening spade bid and two heart overcall by RHO. Now she wasn't strong enough to go to the two level (new suit) in uncontested bidding, but if the opponents show some stuff, she's strong enough for the three? But wait. That's not all. When her LHO granted a temporary reprieve with three hearts, and her partner, who'd heard her original indication of the minors passed, she now went to the four level. That too was a disaster.
I have seen players not strong enough for the two level in a lower ranking suit, bid on the two level in a higher ranking suit because of intervention, as in one diamond by partner, two clubs, two hearts on a moth-eaten 5-card heart suit headed by the Q 10 for a total of 8 hcp's. I have not chosen to follow any of these reckless bidders in uncontested bidding, which I believe would be terribly time-consuming, but I can say this: I have not seen anything like it in uncontested bidding.
Of course I have seen overbids, including some that were clearly inconsistent with the elementary principles of good bidding. But I haven't observed the sheer recklessness I find all too common in competitive bidding. I haven't observed overbids by 3 or four tricks. The reason, it seems to me, is that these people have a basic knowledge of how many points each bid requires and are fairly good about sticking by that when no one gets in their way. But when the opponents jump in, they seem to cut loose from the anchor inherent in a bidding system and say, in essense, "Since there aren't any hard-and-fast rules here, I can bid anything I danged well please."
Whether the opponents enter the bidding or not, indeed, whether you're sacrificing or not, whether you have favorable vulnerability or not, you still have to have a certain trick-taking potential when dummy comes down and the rubber hits the road. The cards don't know who entered the bidding and who did not. They simply offer a certain potential in any given denomination. This potential will shift this way and that by choices made, of course (on all but a relatively few pat hands), but you can't squeeze 9 or 10 tricks out of a 7-trick potential -- except, yes, occasionally on inept defense. But even there, aside from suggesting that you don't want to base your bidding for the long haul on inept defense (do you?), have you noticed how often you get this inept defense that "justifies" your bidding, and how often you don't for a serious penalty?
Overcalls traditionally can be made on fewer hcp's than opening bids, but with a a solider suit. In addition to offering the possibility of a fit, the lead-directing property of overcalls must also save points not too rarely. So it is right and advisable to get your overcalls in early and await developments. But if you made a light overcall on, say 8-10 hcp's, then you made a light overcall that even a fit with your partner, though comforting, doesn't make your hand any stronger than already indicated.
There is nothing like a fit, as I have said elsewhere, but they simply can't make up for a significant shortfall in hcp's (except, of course, for wild distribution like 6-6-1-0). In particularly, I want to emphasize that 8-card fits are very modest fits. That is the number of trump traditionally desired as a minimum and this number works very well by and large when you hold the preponderance of the points. But when you don't hold the preponderance of the hcp's, particularly when you get under 18, you just can't survive on that modest fit, and I could give any number of hands where the side with 5 trump made more tricks than the side with 8. So please don't confuse the attractiveness of 8-card fits when it's "your" hand with safety on an 8-card fit when it's not.
"Sorry, partner, but I expect you to have more for that bid." I don't know how often I've heard that on these expensive overcalls. And I have always felt that the comment is offkey, well, particularly for a continuing partnership. For one thing, this is clearly a double-edged comment. "I'm going to say 'sorry', partner, but it appears you really overbid your hand." More important, I believe, your parnter's hand isn't your concern. . Oh, I know I'm out on a highwire here. The refutations to that dictum are fairly obvious. "We are a partnership, right? So how can we bid intelligently if we don't take our partner's hand into consideration?" That is certainly a legitimate objection. Nevertheless, I'll stick with my statement. Your partner's bid is most definitely your concern. You take the minimum your partner has promised in both point count and length and bid accordingly. But you can't see your partner's hand. You can't know just where his points lie; you can't know whether's he's at top of his bid or the bottom, has greater length in his suit than the minimum promised or not. You can only take his bid and decide on your bid accordingly. Your hand is your concern. Have you already bid all your values? Or are you perhaps a king or more stronger than thus far promised.
If you have already bid all your values, then it doesn't matter if your partner has shown a fit, or made a non-forcing jump. You've bid your hand and only a forcing bid should bring forth another on-going (encouraging) bid (as opposed to showing preference, or rebidding a six-card major opposite a no trump response to a major-suit opening, which is no stronger than a pass, only wiser). In short, I would ask, don't you commonly feel a little underbid or overbid or right on the money with a bid even a curmudgeon couldn't find fault with?
I'm not going to advise on just how much "lessoning" between partners should go on, for obviously that's something each partnership will have to work out for itself. But I will say that if your partnership feels comfortable with going over hands to sharpen your bidding, then it behooves you to come to some terms of what you're promising at what level. That's not to suggest that any pair will completely avoid overbids or underbids, but that they should be cut to a minimum. And "Sorry, partner," should segué into an examination of whether the "accused" did indeed promise more than he had, or the overbidder assumed too much and bid the same values twice on that assumption. Or maybe if it was one of those touch-and-go hands where no one has violated common sense, but it just didn't turn out right. For I wouldn't suggest that every hand without a good result merits blame somewhere. But the real disasters? Yes, if you want to be competitive players. The real disasters should be examined and the blameworthy party should recognize what brought the disaster on.