The Figure Twenty-Six

Twenty-six is on everybody's list of important figures. Just about everybody has heard of it. Some will tell you the real figure is 25, as they scramble to present themselves as, well, a little beyond Goren. Indeed, I must admit that I once read that 25 should give you a good play for a no trump game provided the imbalance in points is no worse than 10-15. Still, 26 is a pretty valuable figure to keep in mind.
This means, among other things, that a 13-point hand facing an opening bid should know as soon as the opening bid is made that you're going to game. Your bids must either be forcing or at game level, period, except, well, of course, for a double of foolhardy opponents. You might, if you have anything of an analytical bent, look at some game hands, including some overbids to note how often that number will lead to game (played flawlessly, of course) and how often a significant shortfall should lead to defeat in a game bid.
No one is saying there is an exact 1-to-1 correlation here. Some 26- or 27-point hands have everything going against them and just won't yield game against best defense, while there are 23- and 24-point hands that happen to have everything going for them and allow game. But don't count on it -- in either direction. The extremes of optimism and pessimism would hurt anybody's game. Twenty-six is the figure that will steer your right far more often than not. Lemme offer a few hands from my January 1982 article in the Bulletin:
A 10 3 2
A 8
Q J 10 4 2
K 7
Q J 5 4
6 4
A 9 5 3
Q 6 5

Counting by the standard method (i.e., counting a point for each doubleton), we find 16 points in the North hand and 10 in the South, for 26 points. Obviously , there is a flaw here: we're counting a point for each doubleton heart when there is no advantage to the second one. Still, deducting a point from our count would leave us with 25, which is a valid enough figure for a hand that should make a major suit game if either of two finesses is on.

J 9 7 2
A Q 4
K 10 3 2
10 8
A 10 6 4 5
K 8 7 5 3 J 9 2
A 6 Q 8 7
7 6 Q J 9 5 4 2
K Q 8 3
10 6
J 9 5 4
A K 3

This hand created quite a ruckus after a Swiss event. Two top players argued over whether 4 spades could be made once it becomes apparent how the defensive cards are divided.
You might think on first glance that the yea-sayer was right. With the king of hearts onsides and with declarer able to finesse the 9 of spades, the potential for escaping with only three losers seems to be there. But in actual fact, the nay-sayer turned out to be right. Declarer doesn't have the controls and entries he needs to develop his 10 winners. (Note that he has to lose the lead twice in diamonds for a fourth-round winner.) But it seemed altogether fitting that a hand so close that it invited an argument even with all four hands showing, should count out to 25 points.

Well, I thought I might go to an OKBridge tournament for some hands that might have a lesson to offer and found a couple.

K 7 3
A 9
J 8 5
K 10 7 6 5
Q 5 10 6 4 2
J 10 5 2 Q 8 7 4 3
A Q 9 4 10 6 3
A Q 3 8
A J 9 8
K 6
K 7 2
J 9 4 2 Contract: 3 no trump

Whoa! Twenty-three high card points, add a point for the five-card club suit and we still only come up to 24. Yet, with the slight advantage of being able look at all 52 cards, we find the hand can be made on any defense! What gives?
Actually what gives is nothing all that uncommon or surprising, nor in any way an undermining of the value of the figure 26. You have to recognize that to make 3 no, you have to pick up two queens. And you have to pick one up by finessing against it, and the other by dropping it. And if that's not enough, you drop the queen in a suit where there are 6 cards outstanding, and finesse against the one where there are only 4.
Would you really like to be in game in those circumstances? Do you really think you could get both queens right? I wouldn't want to be in game. I'd be comfortable in a partial and stick with that figure 26 for game. Here's a statistic you might find worth considering. Sixteen people were in no trump game and only 4 made it. The only one of those four I looked at got an opening lead of the Q of spades! And I wouldn't be surprised if the other 3 also got a gift. That's pretty tough to pick up two queens by different means and against the odds for the number of cards in the opponents' hands.
So as far as I'm concerned, the hand substantiates the relevance of the figure 26 rather than undermining it.

10 8
Q 9 6 3
A 9 6 4
K 7 3
7 5 3 K 6 2
A 10 8 5 4 J 2
K 10 7 J 8 2
4 2 Q 10 9 8 6
A Q J 9 4
K 7
Q 5 3
A J 5 Contract: 3 no trump

Well, a count brings us to 26 hcp's, 9 with North and 17 with South ... and game is pretty cold. You can see that with five spade tricks, you're more than half way home, nor is there any suit the defense can profitably attack, even with the advantage of the opening lead. As I scrolled down the scores I kept saying, where are the underbidders, for I knew from previous experience in OkBridge that there are always some. Well, I did find 'em, but there were only two.
I looked at the bidding of one pair, and it went like this, starting with South, the opponents passing: one spade, two hearts, 2 no and out. Which apparently represents either a misunderstanding of whether 2 no was a forcing bid, or an indifference to the point count promised. For North needs 10 points to go to the two level in a new suit and South is looking at 17, and so certainly shouldn't have missed a cold game with a point count that doesn't absolutely promise game but makes it altogether probable. [years later: I would not recommend "2 hearts" on that yucky suit. The bidding should go: one spade, one no, two no, three no. North has the points for one no. South has the points to say, "Hey, I've got a much better than minimum opener. Are you at the bottom or the top of your bid?" And North replies according with 3 no. But whether "2 hearts" was yucky or not, South should have made sure they got to game on the points promised. Two diamonds (instead of one no) would be tolerable. But "two hearts" should promise 5 hearts.]

Twenty-six can work in ways other than telling you to drive on to game or not. For instance, it might tell you that those other guys don't have game. Here is a hand I held on OKbridge recently:

K 10 8 5 2
------
J 8 7 5 3
A J 5

It hain't much of an opening bid. Nine hcp's and a void. Had I been first hand I would not have treated it as an opener. But when I noted I would be third hand, I figured I could open with the boss suit, except that that proved impossible when my RHO opened one spade! Pass, pass, and now my partner came in with two clubs. Double on my right. I had no reason to mess with that and so passed. Two hearts, pass, and I'm fixing to compete at the three level when RHO now bid three no trump!
Well, now, I had to stop and take stock at that. I had 9 hcp's and if I place my partner with as little as 8 for his re-entry into the auction that would leave those other guys with only 23. There clearly wasn't a running suit, and I certainly had RHO's spades bottled up. So I felt comfortable with a double, which resulted in a good score at 300 points and a pleased partner.
I never did see the Q J of spades on that hand. The suit was led only once, declarer going up with the ace and then to an all red dummy. But my partner had 9 hcp's at least and dummy 3, so declarer had at most 19 hcp's opposite a partner who denied more than 5 in passing first round and promised none bidding opposite a re-opening takeout double. So I can only surmise that declarer bid principally on the basis of having all suits stopped rather than any thought of 26 points. If he had taken account of how far he must be under 26, then I wouldn't have had the opportunity to make use of the figure. But as it was, it came in handy for the defense.
On another hand, a combination of 26 and 33 might well have steered a pair in the right direction. The bidding went a diamond by me, spade by my partner, four spades by me and out. Missing a cold slam. "Well, you made a close-out bid," my partner protested, and I of course told him it wasn't close-out at all, but strength-showing. My partner might have reasoned thus: "I've promised only 6 points on the one-over-one bid, and he's comfortable going to game. So he should have 20 points to bring us to 26. But I'm not looking at just 6 points. I'm looking at 13. And if he has 20, then that brings us to . . . . ."
So if you keep that figure firmly in mind, you never know how it might come in handy.