Overbidding


Let me acknowledge at the outside that a sprinkling of overbids will be part of a healthy bidding style. Anyone who is never overbid must be seriously underbid a good part of the time. There are times when we are jammed with a pre-emptive bid and have to decide whether to pass and be grossly underbid or take a flyer and be somewhat overbid. In addition, the odds mavens tell us that a 50% game is worth bidding and the same goes for a 50% little slam. (Grand slams require a higher probability to be feasible.) That is not to suggest that you should expect to go down on 50% of your game bids, but rather on 50% of your tenuous, touch-and-go game bids. And similarly with little slams.
But the syllogism doesn't work backwards. That is to say, if a healthy bidding style contains some overbids, it doesn't follow that an overbid is therefore necessarily healthy. There are two particular types of frequently-observed overbids that anyone should be able to steer clear of. One is the overbid on top of an overbid and the other is overbidding in competition, which I'll take up in more detail in a moment. The former is a penchant I have observed for over 20 years. The latter is something I discovered only with the advent of OKBridge, which allows one to look at a whole hand and the bidding on any hand you've played.
It must be more than a year ago that I initiated a page devoted to such overbids, but in the ensuing months my attention was diverted elsewhere, and I don't think I've made any new flagrantly overbid entries in all that time. But when each type of overbid surfaced in a recent tournament, I thought I'd return to the topic. Following is the first type:
K 3 2
Q 7 5 3
Q 2
J 10 7 5
A 9 6 Q 5
K J 6 2 A 10 9 8
K 10 8 A J 3
8 6 2 A K 9 4
J 10 8 7 4
4
9 7 6 5 4 Vul: no one
Q 3 Opening lead: 6 of spades

North EastSouth West
Pass 1 1 1 NT
2 3 NT 4 Dbl
All pass

Yikes! An overcall on 3 hcp's, two of which might easily be wiped out, indeed, could have been and should have been! A bit risky, I would say, and with best defense, the two level would have been too expensive if the opponents had gotten their act together, which opponents have been known to do from time to time. However, a two-level double would certainly have been a close call and one could hardly blame E-W for continuing on with their own bidding. But after that flagrant overbid, where your partner has every right to expect a somewhat stronger hand, do you now want to add two levels to the bid?
It makes no sense. To put this another way, when you overbid, your partner should be captain. Of course, you must respond to all forcing bids, but for all practical purposes, you've told your partner all you can tell him and then some. It's your partner's call, now. If he doesn't want to go to the four level, expecting you to have, say, at least 8 or 9 hcp's, why would you want to go to that level with only 3?
Was South seduced by the news of support, of a fit? Oh, please. That's not a superfit but only a modest eight-carder which North is certainly justified, indeed, obligated, to announce opposite the overcall, with 8 hcp's and the modest support. Eight-card fits are not super-fits by any means and can't produce any great number of tricks when you don't have a preponderance of the points. And it's a big mistake to think can because you have, well, a "fit".
The upshot? E-W got off to the best possible defense with a low spade lead, ducked, allowing three trump leads, which means no ruff of a diamond in dummy. So the defense could have taken three diamond tricks, two spades, two clubs and a heart for 8 tricks. As it happened, East decided to duck the second club lead, so there were only 7 tricks for the defense, down 4 for minus 800, roughly double what E-W can make if you let 'em have the bid.
You might note that in making 8 tricks, which were possible, E-W would have been "making" a 2 spade bid with only 5 spades! So don't be hornswoggled into thinking a "fit" will substitute very well for high cards. Not on your modest fits.
K 2
10 9
K 7 4 2
K Q J 4 2
Q A J 10 9 6 5
A Q J 7 3 K
Q 9 8 6 10 5
A 6 4 10 9 8 5
8 7 4 3
8 6 5 4 2
A J 3 Vul: E-W
7 Opening lead: Q of spades

North EastSouth West
1 2 Dbl Pass
2 NT Pass 3 Dbl
All pass

How many points do you need to raise a partner to the two level on a fit? How many do you need to go to the two level in a new, lower-ranking suit? You all know the answers to be 6 and 10 respectively. Yet, with five hcp's and no hint of a fit, this bidder pushes his partner to the three level. Well, it's true, North did find the one remaining 2-level bid open, but South himself went to the three level, so it amounts to the same thing -- going to the three level without knowledge of a fit on 5 hcp's opposite an opening bid.
I first became aware of this phenomenon on OKBridge, as mentioned above. People who wouldn't think of pushing to the 2 level in a new suit on 5 hcp's without the opponents entering the bidding lose all sense of a mooring to hcp's when the opponents bid. I vaguely recall the hand that prompted me to begin looking at this. My partner with 7 or 8 hcp's opposite my spade opening bid, made a negative double for the minors over a 2 heart overcall. Had there been no overcall, she's not strong enough to go to the 2 level, but with the overcall, I'm pushed to the 3. When this double was taken out to three hearts, I passed, but now combining both types of overbid, she bid 4 clubs to make me choose a minor. Oh, me.
I then began to note that this is fairly common, i.e., going wild with bids one wouldn't dream of making without interference from the opponents. At least I haven't seen anything quite like it when there is no oppositional bidding.