A Whopper

	J 9
	9 6 5 2
	5 4
	10 9 8 6 2
8 5 4		K 10 3
A K 8 7		J 10
10 7 3		A K Q J 9 8
K J 7		A 4
	A Q 7 6 2
	Q 4 3
	6 2	Vul: N-S
	Q 5 3	Opening lead: 4 of spades

South	West	North	East
Pass	Pass	Pass	1
1	Dbl	4	Dbl
All	pass

These instances of outrageous overbidding in competition are too common and offer too little scope for discussion to pick up on in every instance. But this one was so outré that I couldn't pass it up. With one hcp opposite a passed hand and subsequent overcall, and vulnerable no less, this player jumped her partner no less than three levels. Oh, and without a particularly good fit. You go figure. These people are by and large capable of telling you how many points they need to bid opposite an opening bid. They know SAYC. I'm speculating, to be sure. I can't prove it in any instance. I draw that conclusion largely from the fact that the truly outrageous leaps and overbids seem just about always to come in competition. Let the opponents open the bidding and they have no guidelines in memory and so make these leaps. (That's not to say bidders never overbid without competition, but they don't do it in such outrageous violations of common sense. At least, that's been my observation.)

I was first drawn to this hand by noting that the only person who bid slam (sitting East) went down, though he got the very favorable opening lead of the A of spades. So he has only one spade loser to pitch on a winner in dummy. Well, maybe he took the wrong finesse, I thought for a moment until I saw that both finesses are on. So he went down for a very, very common reason: he declined to take any finesse.

So he went from 100% to zero on that all too common fear of losing a trick, locking himself into the result of losing two tricks. Or so I presumed. But no, he wouldn't have had 100% on a finesse. There was one score beyond the 990 he could have picked up and that was 1700! Which is what the E-W pair got here. Incidentally, without that A of spades, he could generate two winners in dummy, provided he takes the finesses in the right order. Do you see which must come first? Ah, yes, it must be the hearts because a cover of the J of hearts would block the suit, requiring an outside entry to the suit. This is one of the rare instances where covering the first of equal honors could be advantageous to the defense, and would be if declarer had incautiously played his clubs first.

In any event, lemme just run through the wrongheadedness of that leap to four spades: not enough high card points by far (indeed, not enough even for a two-level bid, not for any any bid, except a forcing bid by partner, with perhaps a preference for clubs if asked to choose), you're vulnerable against non-vul opponents, the two-card support isn't enough to encourage partner. Do you need more? Okay, partner was a passed hand and hence promises less than an opening bid. The second highest score E-W was 520, as somebody evidently made 13 tricks in no trump. But there was quite a gap between 520 and 1700, and when there's that big a gap, you musta done something wrong.

My good friends, I beg of you not to throw common sense to the winds just because you're in competition. You still need points and indeed you need as many points to make 4 spades when your side opens the bidding as when you enter in competition. The cards don't know who started the bidding. Oh, but that was a sacrifice! Oh! Oh, yes, of course. Well, first, I would say you wanna steer clear of these unfavorable vul sacs. They so rarely pan out and it leads to a serious erosion of partnership confidence when you're way out in left field, not even close. Calling a bid a sacrifice doesn't make it all right if it's costly. And if it's outrageously costly, you've got some explaining to do. Here, you'd need nine tricks for a viable sac against a non-vul game and seven tricks against a non-vul slam, which only one pair bid and none made. Make sense? Any (remotely) realistic hope of 9 tricks on 11 hcp's and a meagre 7-card fit?