Misfits

But what ain't we got?
We ain't got a fit.

I suppose everyone has heard bidding that goes something like this (opponents passing), one heart, one spade, two hearts, two spades, three hearts . . . ! Through no fault of your own, you and your partner are bound to find yourselves in misfitting hands every so often, and you're bound to go down in a certain number of them, which will not necessarily be through any fault of yours. But the real disasters, the 800- and 1100-point sets when the opponents don't have slam and the 500-point sets when they don't have game should show up only rarely on your side of the score sheet.

Indeed, misfits should be looked on as an opportunity rather than the bane of your bridge life. Though on any given hand (in a duplicate event), you're in competition with the people at your table for the maximum number of tricks, the people you're really competing against for top spot will be those sitting the same way (in a Mitchell movement) and getting the exact same hands. The task before you is not to find the exact right spot on every hand, which nobody can do, but to bid a little more wisely, to employ a little more common sense than those other guys do. (In rubber bridge, it might be difficult to be philosophical about the long run if you find yourself in a series of misfits during a session, but I'm basically oriented toward duplicate bridge on this web page.)

And to the end of turning misfits into opportunities to gain points, I would offer the following suggestions:

(1) A misfit should be evident on a partner's second bid. So on one heart, one spade, two hearts, the misfit should be evident to the spade holder, though not the heart holder, who, for all he knows, is going to hear four hearts on his partner's next bid or even be taken to slam in hearts. And being the first to know of the misfit, the spade holder's rebid should be given serious consideration.

(2) On weak hands, a misfit should be dropped quickly, sometimes even with a void in your partner's suit, rather than fight each other. If you're not doubled, and particularly not vul, the penalty may be very slight and you might even make a few of these hands if you get out quickly. Like all hands, when you've bid all your values, it's time to think about dropping out of the auction. No trump isn't likely to be the answer to your difficulties and may only induce your partner to bid his suit one more time.

(3) On strong hands, say an opening bid facing an opening bid, I would want to bid on to game, notwithstanding the misfit. And if no trump beckons, then I'll bid no trump. If we've got the tickets, then we've got the tickets. I just had a struggle on such a hand with the computer, which bid a spade, where I had a void, and over my response bid two spades. I had all suits secured and bid three no, which would have been a cakewalk, but out came a bid of four spades -- on a six-card spade suit headed by A 9! Hey, enough's enough. Even then we were strong enough to make on a 4-3 spade break, but had no such luck. We were unnecessarily trapped in spades.

Now there are a few pointers to be made about the hand, one being that when the computer rebid 2 spades, he had bid his hand! Once you've bid your hand, you've shown both your overall strength and your distribution, it's time to let your partner take over. And the second point to be made is that sometimes no trump is the best contract even with a void in one hand. Now if no trump is the best spot, it certainly wouldn't make sense to say you shouldn't bid it, and if it should be bid, it's foolish to argue, "Gee, I thought you'd have two spades for your no trump bid." (On that hand, I had 8 top tricks and a two-way finesse for the queen of diamonds, which would generate a third diamond trick even if it lost. So if the opponents didn't attack spades, I could simply take the diamond hook for a 9th winner, and if they did attack spades, I only had to hold up two rounds to get a picture of the spade distribution. If everyone followed to the third round of spades, I could simply have led the suit again for 3 spade winners and an overtrick, while if someone showed out, I could take the diamond hook into that hand.)

(4) The burden of accountability lies heaviest on the person who ups the level of bidding once a misfit has been exposed. You have to feel your suit is worth (at least) two more tricks than your partner's to raise the level one. For if it's worth only one more trick, you're not gaining much when you've contracted for one more trick to get a positive score -- while courting a far greater risk of a double. True, making three hearts is better than making only two spades. But going down one when your partner could have made his bid or going down two doubled when your partner would have been down a modest one undoubled not only brings a worse score, but makes for a very unhappy partner. And that's not a good idea at all.

(5) Some configurations make for better trump suits than others. Which 7-card holding would you rather have trump when partner gives no indication of a fit?

A K 8 7 4 3 2
or
K Q J 10 9 8 5

The suit with 7 hcp's or the one with 6? And I hope you can see that the latter will serve you better -- well, will probably serve your side better for trump if you have one and pard has the other. For two reasons. The principal reason is that you can survive a bad trump split in a solid suit but not in the other. Further, as a side suit, the A K might offer two quick winners and out, while the latter suit doesn't offer any quick winners, and may not offer any winners as a side-suit. Now, you can't know the configuration of your partner's suit in an evident misfit, but you do know yours and should be guided accordingly, which is to say, be ready to relegate your A K empty suit to a side suit while being ready for one more stab with a solid suit. If partners can trust each other, a struggle should be transformed into a mutual understanding of which suit will serve better as trump.

(6) Don't think of saving your partner. Not even a doubled partner. Now, that's not to say don't think of bidding again. You and your partner have to decide between you where your best hope lies. Period. The opponents should have no say in this. If you feel, in view of what has been postulated above, that a further assertion of your suit is warranted, then you bid it, with or without a double from the opposition. If you've already passed your partner's bid and the double comes from your left, well, you've already made a decision as to your best spot and can't be faked out by an opponent.

The trouble with running from a double, that is "saving" a partner, is that you may be getting into deeper trouble, perhaps even running from a makable contract to an unmakable one, and now you've got a very, very unhappy partner. You'd do well to say, well, this seems to be our best spot . . . and hunker down.

If partners can trust each other on these matters, if they wouldn't insist on their suit unless it's fairly solid, if they wouldn't dream of upping the level once the misfit was evident unless they have a fairly solid suit plus one more card than their partner has indicated, if they wouldn't bid no trump except as a positive step, a belief that it will work, not as an escape from an untenable situation, then I think the damage from misfits should be very slight. Which is to say that vis-à-vis the others bidding the hand, you should do very well indeed.

This is a misfitting hand I played on the computer where I lucked out for perhaps the wrong reason, but which demonstrates that sometimes a simple pass is best:

	Q J 10 7 6 2
	-----
	9 8 6 2
	K J 8
	4 2
	A Q J 9 6 2
	6
	A Q 7 6

My partner bid a heart and I bid a spade. My partner bid two hearts and I . . passed! I confess that with a disciplined partner, I almost surely would have bid two spades, figuring that my partner probably has better spades for me that I have hearts for him, and my suit will be lost if not trump. But I've known the computer to get all excited about absolute minimum rebids and jump all over the place, so I passed.

Now, you might notice that the opponents, if they can get their act together, can beat two spades, run the first six tricks -- two spades and four diamonds -- and then out, whereas they can do no such thing against two hearts. Indeed, two hearts made! Hearts were 4-3, the 10 lying with the long hand, so the opponents got two hearts, two spades and a diamond. The difference of course is that the heart honors are completely lost in a spade contract. So I guess there can be a lot of reasons for letting your partner have his way, keeping a partner happy not being the least of them.

But let me close with a few upbeat comments:

First, I would be guided to no small extent by my point count. If I've got an opening bid opposite an opening bid, then I want to be in game -- somewhere. I'll take my chances. If no trump looks best, then I'll bid no trump, even with a void in my partner's suit. If we can run 9 tricks, then we can make game. Sometimes a partner's suit can be looked on not so much as a generator of tricks as a guard against the opponents running enough to set you. Conversely, if I have minimum points, i.e., a six-card suit headed by the A Q and out, I certainly wouldn't raise the level of bidding, and would think twice before rebidding my suit at the level we're on. With 7 cards, I wouldn't think twice.

When you are between a minimum and an opening bid, of course you will be guided largely by how close you are to one or the other, but with 10 pts or so, I would regard the hand as worth a second bid -- usually. There are bound to be times when my suit is tenace-ridden and I at least have a stiff queen or king for my partner, which will probably solidify his suit.

Also, with a self-supporting suit, say seven cards headed by the A K Q, I would be ready to insist just one more time on my suit. You have to strike a balance between being too fixated on your (modest) suit and too deferential to partner. You can ruin a good score as easily by passing too quickly in the face of a misfit as hanging in there too long. If your partner has learned to trust you -- that's what you've got to build with any partner -- then if the bidding goes one heart, two diamonds (by you), two hearts, three diamonds, your partner will know that you must have a self-supporting suit with 7 cards and no better than a low singleton in hearts. For with anything less in diamonds or more in hearts, there wouldn't be sufficient cause to up the level. And, uh, you better make sure he's right.