Four red flags

In a recent ACBL robot tournament on BBO, I was faced with this decision on the last board:

To overcall or not to overcall? That is the question. I see four red flags here:

• the vulnerability;
• poor suit, poor shape;
• partner is a passed hand;
• three losers in opener's suit.

Let's discuss these in a bit more depth:

The first and most obvious is that we are red and they are white. If I'm wrong when I bid 2D, it could be very expensive while even being right won't likely gain very much.

The second and almost equally obvious problem is that our diamond suit isn't very good--we're supposed to have six for this bid, right? And we have the worst possible shape for an overcall: 5332. And we're missing the J, 9 and 8, any of which would be potentially useful cards in this suit.

Third, and a factor to which many players pay insufficient attention: partner is a passed hand. It's possible that we have a game, but it's against the odds. With this being a robot ("best hand"), then we know that no player has a 14 point hand. So, the remaining 26 points are probably more or less equally distributed, with a preponderance in the East hand (recall that he is a third-seat opener). And, if partner has a decent hand with a diamond fit, the opponents will probably be able to outbid us in a major suit.

Fourth is a factor which I learned long ago from Howard Piltch. Never make a questionable overcall with three losers in the opener's suit. "That's how you get dropped from a team," I recall him saying. Even Qxx isn't much better than xxx when your LHO leads the suit and it goes K, A, ruff.

I therefore eschewed the overcall. When my left-hand opponent bid 2D, I breathed a sigh of relief. Eventually, they made it to 4S which drifted off a trick so I ended up +50.

It was a small tournament (six playing this board) and four of the other five chose to overcall. Predictably, this was followed by pass, pass, double, all pass. At each of those tables, the West robot chose a very strange card (the 8) with which to ruff the second heart trick and the declarers escaped for -200 when it should have been -500. So, we two passers gained 4.8 IMPs, the overcallers lost 2.4 IMPs.

Here's the whole hand:

The four overcallers were all experienced BBOers. What is it that makes them feel that 2D was the correct call? Or were they just unlucky? I think not.