Applying pressure

As my regular readers will know, I'm a fan of so-called pressure bids, that's to say wide-ranging preempts opposite a passed hand. I'm also a non-fan of making tram-ticket overcalls opposite a passed hand. Still unconvinced? That's good. I don't need you doing it to me at the table!

But here's an illustrative tale from a team game on BBO (sorry, I don't know how to make this show only one hand):

Dealer: S Vul: Both	North ♠ KQJ32 ♥ 3 ♦ T985 ♣ T42
West ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣		East ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣
	South ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣
Bidding:	South West North p 1C ?	HTML Bridge Hand Layout Creator

What to do? Surely this is worth in intervention with such an obvious lead-directing situation. But partner is a passed hand so, especially vulnerable, this counts as tram tickets. It's just not good enough for an overcall. What about 2♠? Well, gee, this could go for 800 or worse? Yes it could. But it almost never does.

Let's see what happened at the other table. My counterpart couldn't resist a 1♠ bid. East bid 2♥ and West bid 3NT. South, in the pass-out seat felt sure that, on a spade lead, this was going down. So he doubled. The defense wasn't perfect and my teammates were +950.

Now let's rewind to my turn over 1♣. With some trepidation, I bid 2♠. The next two players passed and I started worrying that the next call would be double. But no, West rebid his clubs (3♣). Note the effect of the pressure bid. The opponents have been talked out of their cold 3NT. The damage wrought by the 2♠ call has already been done! Despite having the chance to get out for -110 or -130 on a deal where presumably the opponents belong in game, partner now bid 3♠! I detest that type of action. If partner has preempted, then preempt as high as you're willing to go at your first opportunity. Fortunately, nobody doubled and I managed to drift off three (perfect play would be down two) for -300.

So, even with partner kicking an own goal, we still won 12 IMPs! Even if they double and I play it no better (I might take a bit more care in a doubled contract) we'd still be up by 4 IMPs :)

Here's the whole layout. As you can see, my opponents weren't the best, but the 2♠ call did give them a serious problem.

Dealer: S Vul: Both	North ♠ KQJ32 ♥ 3 ♦ T985 ♣ T42
West ♠ AT9 ♥ KJ ♦ Q7 ♣ AKQ875		East ♠ 75 ♥ T7542 ♦ AJ62 ♣ J6
	South ♠ 864 ♥ AQ986 ♦ K43 ♣ 93
Bidding:	South West North East p 1C 2S p p 3C p p 3S p p p	HTML Bridge Hand Layout Creator

Phoenix First Day

I am here in Phoenix at the NABC having a lot of fun. Sadly, our results are not commensurate with all that fun. I have a few very minor successes to report.

In the first session of the Life Master Pairs, I picked up K8432 T QT2 KJ64, fourth seat, favorable vulnerability. After two passes, RHO opened 1C. I love to make “pressure” bids but this seemed a little bit too dangerous. Still, we weren’t having a very good session and we needed to pick up some matchpoints from somewhere! Plus, having thought about it a bit, I realized that I needed to do something. So, undaunted, I bid 2S. This was passed back to opener who, after much long thought, decided on 2NT. I led the HT which held the trick. Dummy had J965 Q74 J7653 5. Now what? A club is actually best, but I led a spade. Declarer played DA and a small diamond which partner (Barry) won with the K. To cut a long story short, after we cashed our clubs, Barry was endplayed into giving them a heart trick at the end. Still, that was +200 and worth 48.5/59.

In the second session, fellow blogger Polly Siegel came to the table (she writes a series on BridgeWinners). All were vulnerable and, in third seat, my hand was QJT975 AK53 K7 5. Barry dealt and opened 1D. Imagine my surprise when Polly overcalled 1S. I suppose I could have made a negative double but instead I passed hoping to ring up a telephone number in penalties. But Barry reopened 2C and I jumped to 3NT. I made ten tricks with the help of the singleton SK in dummy. 1SX would have been worth 1100 on proper defense. They might have scrambled into 2H which would be down only 800. But Barry’s shape was 1255 so a reopening double just wasn’t in the cards. As it was, we still did well (50/59) although I’m not quite sure why.

A little later, Zia and Dennis Bilde came to our table. On the first hand, I dealt myself QT7 J975 K983 KQ (all vulnerable). Some people I’m sure would open this hand, but not me. I never open balanced 11 counts. So I passed, as did Zia. Barry opened 1C and Dennis overcalled 1H (he had four points, BTW). I decided to consider myself having a heart stopper and bid 2NT. We were all a little shocked at the next bid - 6NT by Barry. Zia led a heart and Barry tabled the dummy: AKJ2 A A5 AT9842. Everything behaved fortunately so I was able to make all the tricks. There were a few pairs in grand slams but we still managed to get 53/59. They got us on the next board however where they bid to a heart game that most didn’t. Zia was quite voluble (and complimentary all around) and I noticed that he still has quite the British accent, more so than me anyway.

And, in the interests of full disclosure, I should point out that all three of the pairs against which we had the lucky, or at least fortunate, results mentioned above, qualified for the second day while we did not.

We adjourned to the midnight KOs and teamed up with Mike Ring (my sister-in-law Kathy’s regular partner) and another Mike from the Seattle area. We were up against some good young players (I really felt old in that crowd). I noticed that my seat at the other table was occupied by Dennis Bilde. It turned out to be a wild match. On the first board, we got a somewhat lucky 690 (or so I thought) and then an 800 on what seemed to be a part-score. Things were looking good. On the fourth board, we set 3NT and then conservatively stopped below game, making 3. Then came a board where we were red on white. LHO opened 1C, Barry bid 1H (with a 12-count) and RHO bid 1NT. What would you do with QTx xxx KQx QTx? Perhaps double would be best, but I decided to raise to 2H. LHO now doubled and this was passed our for down 2 (-500). Not quite so good! The seventh board was a part-score and a push. Our opponents bid the slam on #1 (12 imps away) and managed to get 1100 for the same contract on #2 (on reflection, we lost a trick on defense - 7 imps away). We picked up one on the third board.  We got 10 imps when our teammates made 3NT on #4, and 5 when they set the opponents on #5. They didn’t find the double on #6 so that cost 7 imps. So, from thinking we’d won, it turned out that we lost by 26-16. But they were a good team even if they weren’t taking things too seriously.

Controlling pressure

The general definition of a pressure bid is a uni-lateral and disruptive action by one player when he believes that the hand belongs to the other side.  That's to say the player gets in and out quickly, using up as much room as is considered prudent.  It's uni-lateral because, except under rare circumstances, his partner can be relied upon to do nothing likely to reduce the effectiveness of the bid.  In other words, partner won't bid without extraordinarily good distribution.  A pressure bid also aims to force the opponents to make the last guess (one of the goals of competitive auctions).  Once in a while, the pressure bid will itself be doubled and this will be bad in 99% of all cases – you will have made the last guess!  But in my experience this rarely, if ever, happens.

The usual reason to assume that partner won't kick an own goal later in the auction is that he's a passed hand and can be expected to follow the maxim that passed hands should never do anything questionable.  These are the primary pressure situations.  For example, white on red, ♠KJ8653 ♥97643 ♦9 ♣T where partner has passed as dealer and RHO passes.  You know that LHO has a big hand and you want to do everything you can to deny him a nice comfortable auction.  3♠, or even possibly 4♠, is likely to be right here, exaggerating the length and quality of your spades.  Sure, it can backfire, but if you and your partner are on the same wavelength, partner won't raise your preempt or attempt a sacrifice unless his hand is something like ♠Q942 ♥– ♦8542 ♣A9743, that's to say a highly offensively oriented hand for spades.  On the other hand, you might make the following pressure bid: 2♠ with ♠KJ853 ♥Q93 ♦K92 ♣QT and fail to bid your game when partner shows up with ♠Q942 ♥3 ♦AJ542 ♣K94.  But this bad outcome tends to be offset by the situations where the opposing declarer finesses into your two queens!

But what about extended pressure situations?  Again, the vulnerability has to be favorable and it should appear that it's their hand.  But we now allow partner to have made one bid, provided that the bid is relatively limited and descriptive.  For example, a limited opening of 1♥ (precision, max of 15 hcp) or a 1♥ overcall.  In contrast, some bids would not be appropriate partner actions for an extended pressure bid.  For example, a minor suit opening, which may well be based on a balanced hand, or a two-suited bid which is sufficiently well-defined that partner should be able to make a good immediate guess.

Let's say that you have the following hand: ♠AT5 ♥KT962 ♦764 ♣AT and RHO deals and opens 1♣.  You bid 1♥, and LHO makes a negative double.  This is a classic extended pressure situation for partner if he has a heart fit and fewer than about 7 points.  Most of the time, partner has a pretty good idea of what's in your hand: 5 (occasionally 6) hearts and somewhere between 8 and 15 points (more points are possible but of course unlikely).  Your hand is also somewhat limited by the fact that both opponents are in the bidding.  Let's say partner raises to 3♥.  Does this guarantee four piece support?  Not if the conditions are right for an (extended) pressure bid.  Now let's suppose that RHO thinks for a bit and finally comes out with 3♠.  You pass and LHO thinks for a bit and raises to 4♠ and it is back to you.  You need to be fairly sure of at least 18 total tricks (and not 9 each side) to make a 5♥ sacrifice pay.  Are you sure?  The opponents almost surely have only eight spades between them and they are both probably near the minimum point-wise for their bidding. Even if we have 10 hearts between us, we have no shortness so 19 total tricks are probably not going to be available.

With this hand, I think you have a fairly clear nolo contendere.  You have the worst possible shape for an overcall and partner declared that, in his opinion, 3♥ is as high as we should go, opposite a run-of-the-mill overcall.  Let's hope that we can beat 4♠.  If partner has pushed them into a lucky make with his pressure bid, then you will at least be winning the post-mortem.

But suppose your hand was instead ♠T53 ♥KQT962 ♦A76 ♣4.  Yes, you might have bid 2♥ in the first round but with partner not yet having passed, you didn't want to preempt our chances of bidding game.  If partner has something like ♠2 ♥AJ43 ♦JT98 ♣9764, it's very likely that they can make 4 or 5 spades while we are down 1 or 2 only at 5♥.  We would want to sacrifice obviously.

But how do we know that partner hasn't made a pressure bid on ♠42 ♥AJ4 ♦JT98 ♣9762?  It might still be right to sacrifice but it doesn't really look like it.  How can we find out?

This is where the pressure bid control described by Robson and Segal is useful.  Over 3♠, 3NT by your hand says to partner that you have a fine hand for sacrificing and if he does too, then go ahead and sacrifice over their 4♠, otherwise pass over 4♠ (but bid 4♥ over the likely double).  Obviously, in the context of this auction, you can't possibly want to play 3NT.  You need to have a hand that's as distributional as ♠T53 ♥KQT962 ♦A76 ♣4 to make this strategy safe: if they can't make game and 4♥ goes for 300 or worse, it won't be a good score!  Of course, if your hand is two-suited, say ♠T3 ♥KQT62 ♦AQ642 ♣4 you will bid 4♦ over 3♠ and allow partner to evaluate his hand for a sacrifice (or even a make) in the context of a red two-suiter opposite.

Robson and Segal only describe the 3NT bid in the context of a primary pressure bid (i.e. where the potential raiser has initially passed).  I've proposed extending its use, but it doesn't seem that anything could be lost by it since 3NT could never be a natural bid here.

Dumb and dumber

I've heard of "dumbing down", and the ACBL is certainly quite "masterful" at it (get it?).  But this has to be some sort of world record:  looking at the results of a recent NAP game, I note that a C pair "qualified" with a 32.3% game!  They didn't beat anyone, either in their own section or the other section.  What is going on?  Could this be because there was a simultaneous novice pairs going on at the same location?

Meanwhile, in the third round* of this evening's club Swiss, playing the eventual winners, my team benefited considerably from the non-linear IMP and VP scales.  In six boards, between our two pairs, we managed to lose a total of 59 imps on "errors" with respect to double-dummy bidding and play.  That's 5 imps per pair per board!  Fortunately, the opponents made 18 imps of errors and the net was only 34 (instead of the 41 that would accrue on a linear scale) [our net loss in total points was 2030!]  Of course, this all adds up to being blitzed.  But again, it's better to have all your errors in one set because of the non-linearity of the VP scale.  Thanks to the non-linearity, and despite being 1 IMP (and 90 points) in the hole overall, we still ended up 2 VPs above average and in the money!

As they say, in bridge it's better to be lucky than good!

But enough of this silly philosophizing.  What you want to see is a hand!  Here's one from the second match that both pairs did well on (although this time the non-linearity worked against us of course).

Dealer North. E/W Vulnerable.
	♠ K Q J 10 5 ♥ A 10 5 ♦ 9 7 6 ♣ 6 5
♠ 8 ♥ K J 8 7 3 2 ♦ K 8 ♣ K J 9 3		♠ A 7 6 4 2 ♥ Q 6 4 ♦ A 5 ♣ 8 7 2
	♠ 9 3 ♥ 9 ♦ Q J 10 4 3 2 ♣ A Q 10 4

At the other table, Kim opened the South hand with an excellent third-seat "pressure bid": 3♦.  This effectively silenced the West player.  Tony raised the preempt to 4♦ and there it rested.  [BTW: it's usually not necessary to raise a pressure bid unless you have really excellent shape – see my blog Pressure Bids].  Result: -50.

At our table, the South player started with 2♦ and my partner, Len, deemed his hand just good enough to bid 2♥ (and I agree).  If I recall correctly, North passed and I was left to consider my hand.  In the context, my hand was about as good as it could be for a passed hand in support of partner's 2♥: three golden cards.  The only improvement might be if the ♦A was seconded to the clubs instead.  Thinking about the 5:3 reward/risk ratio for a vulnerable game, I jumped to 4♥ and we played it there.  Result: +650.  As you can see, game is cold.  Indeed it takes a slightly unlikely club lead to hold it to 10 tricks.

This was good for 12 imps but, like a 75 yard kickoff return, it was Kim's 3♦ call which got us into a winning position.  Imagine that our North and East players both decided to pass.  We'd still be gaining 7 imps on the board.  As it happens, that would have translated into only one fewer VP for the match.

* Incidentally, on this set, the North hand averaged 14.67 hcp per board (including one 2 point board).  That's quite a marked deviation from the norm.

Pressure bids

There's a certain type of bid, of which I happen to be rather enamored, called the pressure bid.  I learned to do this from Robson and Segal: Partnership Bidding -- The Contested Auction, a brilliant book BTW.  A pressure bid is a uni-lateral jump bid made with the purpose of disrupting the opponent's auction and misleading the opponents about the layout of the hand.  It is a gambit which, by its very nature, can only be made once partner has passed.  Not, by the way, when partner has passed over an opening bid because while he may have a worthless hand, he might also be laying a trap for his opponents.  Like the heffalump trap, it's better to try and stay out of it ourselves.

More conservative authors, such as Larry Cohen, call this a wide-ranging jump overcall.  It's wide-ranging because the strength can be anything from almost a bust to just under an opening bid and because the distribution may be more balanced (or possibly less balanced) than might normally be expected for the bid.

The partner of the pressure bidder must respect the fact that he's already passed and, as always, should avoid taking marginal actions.  But opposite a pressure bid, the responsibility of passer is a little more extreme.  The way I characterize it for my partners is: don't raise unless you have:

• four trumps and a side void; or
• five trumps and a side singleton; and/or
• a reasonable expectation of making game if partner is at the top end of his strength range.

There is a control bid which can be used to encourage the pressure bidder to sacrifice if he has a good distributional hand: 3NT.  This obviously needs to be used only in partnerships which have explicitly discussed it.  Otherwise, pressure bidder's lips are forever sealed (except when passer invites game).

One of my partners has suggested that I should keep track of the pressure bids that I make to see how they work out in practice.  This of course is an excellent suggestion which thus far I have neglected.  My guess is that I come out ahead probably 60% of the time.  It is a strategy prone to tops and bottoms by its nature and the fact that most other players will not be doing the same thing.  In a way, it is similar to psyching, and thus should only ever be used on good opponents.  There is no point in making a pressure bid against a pair that you were probably going to get a good board from in the normal way.

So, I shall try to use this space for tracking my pressure bids, beginning with one which turned out to be a modest success.

The scene: the last (third) board of the first round of a club game against a good pair (who actually won their direction, despite getting only 23% for the first round).  They are vulnerable and we are not, the typical colors for pressure bids.  My hand: ♠AQJ98 ♥64 ♦QT ♣9743.  Partner deals and passes (the green light goes on!) and RHO bids 1♥.  I confidently bid 2♠ (there is no point in making these bids with less than 100% confidence!)  Partner alerts and then explains my bid (whether this is really necessary I'm not sure but it certainly helps later if the opponents feel damaged).  LHO reluctantly passes.  Partner, as expected, passes too.  RHO, after some thought, comes in with a double.  This is the moment you've been dreading: your bad weak jump overcall has now been exposed and you are going to pay the price.  As it happens, partner has three spades and our butcher's bill for 2♠X would actually be only 100.  LHO bids 3♦ and there it rests.  In fact, the opponents can, with careful play, make 3NT.

Now, here's the fun part.  After I drop the ♦T on the first round, declarer quite reasonably plays me for a singleton diamond and finesses into my Q.  I am now able to give partner a ruff in clubs, the suit to which I switched on winning the ♠A at trick 1.  So we end up getting two tricks we're not entitled to and we are the ones collecting 100 and scoring 9.5 out of 15 (63.3%).  I suspect that we would have done better but the obvious 3NT takes some quite careful play and I'll bet that many of our "teammates" ended up going down in that contract.

I know that it's only a matter of time before I am down 1100 on a board on which we rated to go plus.  But so far, after maybe ten to twelve of these types of bid, I have yet to befall such a fate.

Good/bad overcalls

So, you've probably been wondering why there haven't been any hands in this blog lately.  Good question.  Sometimes, I'm constrained by not being able to show you what terrible things my partners did because of common decency.  Sometimes, I do something so awful myself that I can't bring myself to show you.  But the opponents, I figure, are fair game, provided of course that I don't actually name names.

Yesterday evening at the club, Len and I were having a good game but we got two bottoms after opponents made what I would call really bad overcalls.  But do you see the irony of this?  Maybe the kind of overcalls they make are actually good overcalls.  After all, they're not getting punished and they're getting tops, thus giving them positive reinforcement.

I admit to being keen on making "pressure bids".  These are jump overcalls when my partner has already passed (but not when he's passed over an opening bid because he might have a good defensive hand then).  Especially, white on red, these can work well.  A pressure bid is a wide-ranging jump overcall (or preempt) that can be significantly flawed by any (or all) of the following: 1) a card "short"; 2) missing honors in the suit; 3) stray quacks (even Kings sometimes) in outside suits.  The purpose of this unilateral attack on the enemy is to take away bidding room while you can rest safely in the knowledge that partner won't raise without a very suitable hand.  Here's a perfect situation:  partner deals and passes (we are not-vul vs. vul) and RHO bids 1♣.  You hold: ♠84 ♥KT8654 ♦932 ♣Q4.  It looks quite likely that LHO's natural bid is going to be 1♠ (although 1D, 1NT or 2♣ are possible too).  So you bid 2♥, taking away the entire one-level and lower two-level including all of the likely responses.  This is a sound tactic at matchpoints.  You might even make the same bid with ♠84 ♥KT865 ♦J932 ♣Q4.  Every so often you will go -1100 but most of the time you will pressure the opponents into over, or sometimes under, bidding.  If your partner does end up on lead and happens to have ♥Qxx or even ♥Jxx, a heart lead will probably not go amiss.  At matchpoints, these minor improvements (or averages) will outweigh the occasional zero.  That's the theory, anyway.

But what is the point of the following overcall?  You deal yourself ♠8 ♥J75432 ♦KQT6 ♣AT all red.  You pass and then when RHO opens 1♦, you now jump to 2♥.  Not only is your LHO already a passed hand, and you have a really bad suit, but you have tons of defense!  Two tricks at least in opener's suit and the ♣A!  LHO doubles, RHO (that would be me), after some thought, passes it out and you go down 2 for -500 when partner puts down a worthless dummy.  LHO has to lead his singleton ♥Q in order to get the full 800 penalty (my hand ended up getting strip-squeezed because I ran out of safe exit cards).  So the bad overcall has gained a top.  But is it bridge?

What about the following specimen?  Again you are the dealer and give yourself ♠543 ♥KJ3 ♦KJT65 ♣J6 at favorable vulnerability.  Again it goes all pass and this time your RHO (that would be me again) opens 1♣.  Now, I can see bidding 2♦ here.  You have a fine suit and your bid would take away the one level.  I probably wouldn't do it though because the shape is awful and your major suits give you no real reason to want to push the opponents around.  But I would never in a million years bid 1♦!  First of all, that bid should show a much better hand.  And if you had such a hand wouldn't you have opened 1♦?  The shape is still awful and although you would like a diamond lead, it's not a good enough suit to force partner to lead a diamond when he has some other natural lead.  So, what happened?  The opponents (Len and I) had a mixup (more my fault than Len's) and stopped in 4♣, making an "overtrick" for 170 while all the time 6♠ is cold.  On this occasion, the diamond overcaller could actually have taken a successful sacrifice over 6♠ in 7♦ and gained an all-important 30 points.  But does that make this horrible overcall right?

I'm reluctant to change my overcalling style based on these (and other) lucky results.  But it really depresses me that people can play so badly and end up smelling like roses!