The principle of substantive discretionary bids

I mentioned this idea long ago in one of my first blogs in this series (see Every bid tells a story) and maybe it's time to dust it off and give it another airing. For brevity, I prefer to call it the "Principle of Stuff."

It strikes me as simply common sense that if you are making discretionary bids (that's to say a free bid when an opponent was the last to act, especially when it was your right-hand-opponent who last acted) then you should have some substance in your suit. And I will go further. The more you are sticking your neck out, the better your suit will be for the purposes of partner's lead.

Here's an example that came up in a club duplicate. I dealt myself the following hand at favorable vulnerability: ♠AJ ♥T98642 ♦AKQ7 ♣4. Naturally, I opened 1♥ which was followed by 2♣ on my left. Partner passed smoothly, as did RHO and it was back to me. I didn't have to bid again, although with a 14 count and shortness in their suit I think I always would. But technically my second bid was discretionary. So should I repeat the bad six-bagger, or bid diamonds where I actually had some stuff and would welcome a lead if the opponents win the auction with 3♣? Double is also a possibility I suppose but with only two spades and no extras to bid a third time, that seemed unpalatable.

This decision (2♦) helped us to a 75% board and I later mentioned to my partner that I had chosen to bid diamonds at my second turn at least partly for lead-directing purposes. He was a little surprised, saying that if he'd ended up on lead, he would have certainly led a heart. So much for this idea being "common sense."

When you are bidding in a constructive (non-competitive) auction, your choice of bids is largely dictated by your system and the relative lengths of your suits. With two five-card suits, for example, you will open the higher ranking and at your next turn bid the lower ranking. There's no way for partner to infer which might be the stronger suit. But this is because you believe that it's your hand and that you are simply trying to determine what strain and what level to play in.

If, instead, you make an overcall you are putting yourself in some danger. Partner may have no fit and no high cards. You should have some good stuff in your suit. What if your hand is good enough to make two overcalls without any encouragement from partner? Having survived your first overcall unscathed, you are seriously sticking your neck out the second time. Partner can of course give preference to the first suit if he likes it more, but there may be no escape from a bad result if partner has little support for either suit. It makes sense then that the second suit is likely to be the better suit because if it was weak, you would be unlikely to mention it at all – you haven't been forced to make a second overcall. Perhaps it's only a minor inference but it seems to me to be valid.

Here's a more compelling example from the recent 0-5000 Blue Ribbons...

What's going on here? Partner could have bid 2NT over 2♠ to show both minors, right [well, let's assume so, anyway]. Why is he bidding out his suits like this? He's either a lunatic or he's get a good hand with both minors. Which do you think is his better minor? If he had equal quality in both suits, he might perhaps have bid 2NT. But what we do know for sure is that his clubs must be very good to stick his neck out quite so far (a four-level solo effort, vulnerable).

So, are you tempted to do anything? 5♦? What makes you think we can make 5♦? The spade king might be useful but the hearts are tram tickets. We have no fitting honors in diamonds. Partner might be able to make a four-level contract with a trick or two from our side. But we basically have half a trick unless he has losing clubs to ruff. And if 5♦ might be a sacrifice, why are we doing it red on white?

How about double? Partner has overcalled two suits, so double will not be cooperative. It will be penalty. Do you think they can make 4♠? Each player is limited in values. North seems to have an extra spade. But I see no reason to assume that they can actually make 4♠. Indeed, our singleton is opposite partner's best suit. That sounds like a bit of a misfit. Double is the right call (+300 for about a 90% board) but pass would be acceptable too (70%).

On defense, I think it's rather obvious that we will be leading a club and indeed that is the only lead to achieve down two. Here is the hand record. Possibly, West overbid in the circumstances, but it gave our side the chance for a very good score. Without the club bid, the opponents would most likely be making 140 for about 40%.

So, I think it's worth paying close attention to the way partner bids his suits, especially if there was an alternative method of showing both suits. A dangerous bid should be based on a good suit. Therefore, when my partner freely bids a second suit, I always lead it if there's no clear reason to lead the other, such as a singleton. It seems to work out pretty well most of the time.

A baby throw-in

The NABC Fall Nationals are back in District 25 (New England) -- at the Providence Convention Center. It's a terrific site to play in, and the city has some old world charm and is easy to get around. Last evening they put on their "Water Fire" show (kind of a son et lumière) especially for us bridge players and I loved it. It was a bit too cold to hang around for a long time but we should come back in the summer to see/hear the whole thing. Being so much further south than Boston (!), Rhode Island even provided snow-free conditions which would not have been the case in Massachusetts.

Kim and I entered the Life Master pairs but a few too many errors, together with some appalling luck left us well below the cut (for example, on the very first board our opponents reached a making 6NT on a combined 30hcp with two totally balanced hands). Thus, we "qualified" for the Saturday compact KO with our teammates Don and Daniel.

Our team total was 10,000 which put us in bracket 3 [wow! do we really have a five figure team total these days?]. The opening three-way was uneventful, winning one and losing one (the latter due to some carelessness -- you have to play every board to its full potential!) The result of the second match was unfortunately based on a director call -- and subsequent appeal decision. I hate it when that happens, but in truth it was a clear-cut issue. The auction had started on my left (we were white, they were red) with 1NT (14-17). Partner bid 3D and RHO bid 4D (transfer). LHO completed the transfer and now RHO bid 5D. This call (they had no particular agreement as to what it would mean) put LHO in the tank for 20-30 seconds and he came out with 5H. RHO then bid the slam. We called the director over and all were agreed there was a break in tempo (BIT). At least our opponents were good enough not to say "I didn't notice a break in temp" and "no, I didn't hesitate," as would typically happen at a club game.

The slam made but the director rolled it back to 680. At the other table, the bidding started out the same but they stopped in 4H making 710. We won the match by two, pending the appeal. This being a regional event, the director-in-charge heard the appeal (a slightly less formal process than for NABC+ events). After a very professional handling of the situation by the director, the other team withdrew.

After the dinner break, we faced a team of Swedish/Finnish juniors. We were very impressed by their comportment at the table and we enjoyed this match very much. They played a very complex big club relay system at our table which sometimes propelled them to 4NT contracts. Indeed the twelve boards we played included three 4NT contracts: one of ours, making; two by them, one failing by one trick (11 IMPs to us), one by two tricks (3 IMPs). I also made two doubled contracts which between them were worth 27 IMPs. I had to apologize for one of these as it was a bidding error by me that turned out luckily. But there is a lesson here for my LHO. After 1C -- 1D (both alerted), I bid 3D with my seven diamonds to the ace and not much else. Reasonable, right? Well, no, because we play suction in this situation and Kim alerted. LHO doubled and all passed. Dummy had enough for me to make nine tricks. The moral of this story is this: when RHO makes an artificial bid that could possibly have been intended as natural but is going to be taken out by your LHO, wait until they get into trouble before doubling. I was happy to note that we didn't need that lucky result for the win.

The other hand, referred to in my title was this:

I like to read humorous bridge books, especially those by David Bird and Victor Mollo. But whereas at the Griffins and St. Titus' Monastery, endplays arise on every other board, they don't seem to come up so frequently at my table. This is one that not only legitimately won us the match but pretty much made my day. Note that on my lead of the club four, East has a choice of poisons: he can let the four win and I throw a losing diamond, or he can win and then be endplayed. Very satisfying.

At the other table, the auction was identical, except for the final double. And the play to the first three tricks was also identical. My counterpart went down two (no helpful double), all the same. I told my teammates that the contract was always cold. Not so. At trick two, if East leads any black card, I can no longer make the hand, as you can see by pressing the GIB button in the replay.

A note on the bidding. Kim hates it when I steal the contract from her. So I do it with great trepidation. Here you can see that my decision was probably wrong (again!) for her notrump contract would make actually make ten tricks on the likely heart lead. But on a club lead, I think we'd be in trouble. In any case, if I had passed, there'd be no story.

I entitled this blog "A baby throw-in" because that's how the Hideous Hog would describe it. He would undoubtedly claim at trick four (he can't claim until the trump king falls otherwise the later throw-in will only generate one extra trick and two will be needed). Remind me not to make such heavy weather of it next time :)

Using double or redouble to ask about partner's hand

Here's the type of auction for which many pairs do not have a good understanding of how best to compete:

The situation arises when West's bid is ambiguous (for example, it doesn't specify a suit, or shows only one suit of two). Click each bid to see its meaning. Is partner showing clubs? The majors? Could it be some sort of rescue request?

In my partnerships, this redouble has a very simple and clear meaning: "I have decent values and I'd like you to further describe your hand at your next turn." Without the redouble, South might bid a major and you (West) might feel that your hand wasn't good enough to bid 3♦. But partner is saying: I really want to know what your hand is.

This hand came up at a sectional tournament, playing against two good matchpoint players. I was East. South passed and West now bid 2♦. Two passes followed and now South decided to bid 3♣. This went pass-pass and I finished proceedings with double. We scored 500 (could have been 800) for a clear top. It turned out that North made a somewhat over-enthusiastic Stayman bid and South, expecting his partner to have a bit more, decided to bid his clubs with only an 11-count. Here is the whole hand:

It was good that we have the rule that all doubles after a redouble are for penalty, so there was no doubt what the final double meant.

The double can be used for the same thing. Here's an example using the same hand, just a slightly different treatment for the West hand:

Again, just to be clear, East's double says nothing about clubs—it asks partner to state which of the three hands he actually has: 2♥ would show both majors (pass or correct), 2♦ would show diamonds and pass would show clubs.

This seems like a simple, effective, agreement. Yet in my experience it is quite rare. Maybe even unique. Without it a distributional but weak responder can easily preempt the other side out of a good contract. Suppose in the actual hand (first example), North had simply transferred to spades with a 2♥ call. East doesn't double because his double would show good hearts. South bids 2♠. Is West really going to come in with 3♦? I don't think so.

Does it matter?

There's a funny story one of our local experts tells about long ago when he was trying to teach his wife to play bridge. The queen of the suit led by our hero was in the dummy. Declarer called for a low card. His wife and partner put up the king. Later, it turned out that she also had the jack. "Why didn't you play the jack when dummy played low?" he asked. "Does it matter?" came her reply.

This same thing has happened, independently, to me and Memphis Mojo, one of my regular readers. It appears to be an epidemic. Here's my example from just a couple of weeks ago (from a random BBO table):

My partner described herself as "intermediate." Perhaps I shouldn't have made such a close double, especially since they could have played in the more normal contract of three hearts which requires decent defense to defeat. But on the auction it seemed to me that they would be going down. We got over the first hurdle when partner didn't pull my double (always a worry in these situations). I led the ♣9 and dummy played low. Clearly, there was a very threatening heart suit in dummy which my partner could do little to stop (although her ten certainly was a good card!). When partner put up the king, I could be fairly sure that she also had the ace. Obviously she wouldn't want there to be any chance of that queen ending up as an entry to the established hearts!

Imagine my surprise when declarer won the trick with the ace. Inconceivable. But more surprises were in store. Partner also had the jack!

Did it matter? Not much. Only 690 points (14 IMPs) worth.

Signaling - suit or whole hand?

Signaling is easy when there's only one message to be sent and the same message to be received. In communications, we would say that the protocol is established. Here's a simple example: in a suit contract, partner leads the king of a side suit (king from AK). Dummy comes down with three to the queen. The queen is on view so that the protocol (assuming standard carding) established is that follower's carding will be: high-low if he has a doubleton and wants to ruff; otherwise low-high. High-low here is not count. It's attitude but of a specific type -- it doesn't say you like the suit (you don't) -- it says you can give partner a ruff in the suit. If you had J873 in the suit you would like the suit well enough. If partner continues with the suit, your jack will eventually become the high card. That might be nice in a notrump contract but is completely counter-productive in a suit contract! So, that's why the protocol doesn't cater to that situation. High-low says you can ruff the third round and that's all it says.

Unfortunately, there are also many situations where the protocol isn't so well established. Here's a case in point which arose in a club game against unknown opponents. Partner led a small heart and down came the dummy (click "Next").

I won the first trick with the ten and paused for thought. Partner was leading "my" suit and it looked like she had one or three as I could see all the low spots. If it's a singleton, she can get a ruff, but I need to cash some winners first in case it's declarer who has the singleton. So, I cashed the club king to which I received a discouraging signal. According to my interpretation of the protocol, that means that partner is looking for a heart ruff. But according to partner's interpretation, she just doesn't have anything good in clubs. I continued with the ace and then cashed the heart ace. It was declarer who ruffed but we had two more tricks coming: the trump king and the spade ace, for +500.

On this hand, it made no difference. The heart king that I mistakenly promoted in the dummy could never be used for a discard so all was well. But it got me thinking about the protocol in this situation. With no real clues from the auction, I really felt I needed to know about the heart situation. Why would I care about clubs? -- nothing in the dummy could go away on declarer's good clubs. In other words, I needed a signal that helped with the whole hand, not the suit (clubs) in question.

It turns out that we lost the hand in the auction which perhaps is my fault for not bidding hearts directly at some point. Because of partner's three small hearts, we can actually make four hearts, although several players did not. We scored a decent 8 out of 12, eight pairs having bid game our way with four of them making.

I've written before about signals that simply inform and signals that try to direct the defense: Show and tell -- more on defensive strategy. My thesis was that it is the degree of urgency, typically as evidenced by a strong side suit in dummy, which determines which message should be sent.

Here's another situation from the same session (also against unknown opponents):

You can click on the GIB button to see what's right. But I didn't have that luxury. Both of us could see that dummy had a threatening heart suit. So, to me that triggers the notion of urgency. Can we cash sufficient spade tricks before they can get their heart tricks? Or should we try to knock out the diamond ace early on so that it cannot be used later as an entry to the established hearts?

Partner encouraged spades and I had no reason to believe that she wouldn't be able to cash another three spades after getting in with her presumed entry. So, I continued spades at trick two. Unfortunately, the right defense was to give up on spades for now and knock that diamond out. This resulted in us suffering our only bottom board. Defeating the contract would have been a top.

Again, I probably should have known that a diamond was the most urgent. But, I suspect that opportunities for signaling about the whole hand (that's to say helping to direct the defense) arise quite frequently. We definitely need to be on the same page in these circumstances.

Making sense of BBO skill levels

One of the fascinating things about BBO is the self-assignment of skill level. There are six levels to choose from plus "private". These are World Class, Expert, Advanced, Intermediate, Beginner, Novice. Probably the two most abused are expert and advanced. I've never seen anyone who judges themselves to be World Class to be incorrectly described (perhaps BBO monitors this level, I don't know). But I've seen plenty people self-assign themselves as expert whose claim to expertise in the game of bridge is questionable at best. BTW, I describe myself as expert too. Whether I am in the eyes of my fellow real-life bridge players is certainly open to question. But I feel obliged to do so in practice, by comparison with many other "experts" on BBO. I really have no idea what the criteria for these skill levels should be.

Here's the official BBO description of the levels in each case followed (in italics) by my take based on actual experience:

Novice
Someone who recently learned to play bridge — like, today, er... just now.
Beginner
Someone who has played bridge for less than one year — more like less than a month and may not have played at a club.
Intermediate
Someone who is comparable in skill to most other members of BBO — someone who is reasonably honest about their skill level but who hasn't really progressed much from the beginner stage.
Advanced
Someone who has been consistently successful in clubs or minor tournaments — someone who has been playing too long to describe themselves any other way.
Expert
Someone who has enjoyed success in major national tournaments — someone who can count to 13, especially in the trump suit; may actually know what an endplay is and perhaps has actually pulled one off; knows that underleading an ace at a suit contract is generally a bad idea.
World Class
Someone who has represented their country in World Championships — a real expert.

These BBO descriptions of course beg the question: what defines success? Do you have to win a major national tournament event to be an expert? Or is it sufficient to have placed in the overalls, or got a section top? What about bracketed KOs? Must you have won the top bracket? What about Midnight KOs? What about single-session consolation events like a Swiss? I think it's all just a bit too vague.

So, I've been compiling a list of the types of errors that I see perpetrated by the various levels. Many of these observations come from individual tournaments, or just sitting at a random table (although it's rare to find anyone who claims to be an expert sitting at such tables — I only do it when I don't have time for a real game). So, here goes:

Intermediate:

• Fails to notice that an opponent has shown out of a suit and/or fails to appreciate that said suit is now going to block if we aren't careful.
• Thinks that the double of a 1NT overcall is for takeout.
• Discards potential winners instead of likely losers when declaring a hand (one suit is 97 opposite AJT6 [two tricks are certain], the other suit is AQ87 opposite 543 [82% chance of two tricks]).
• With ♠Q9654 ♥AK ♦95 ♣KQJ4, after this auction (IMPs, none vulnerable, dealer is on the left): p p 1♦ 1♠ 2♦ 3♦ 4♦, prefers to bid 5♣ rather than waiting to see what partner is going to do (result: -100 instead of +420).
• Bids 1♠ only with ♠AJ62 ♥AJ86 ♦5 ♣KJ64 when (all vulnerable) LHO opens 1♥ and partner doubles.
• Raises partner's 1♠ (previous comment) to 2♠ over an intervening double with ♠Q843 ♥75 ♦AK864 ♣Q2. [This pair bids all the way up to 4♠ but opener's partner has KT975 of trumps and wields the axe for a top. (or 8 IMPs if it were teams)].
• Deals and opens ♠AK8 ♥void ♦AQJT9862 ♣A2 with a diamond preempt.

Advanced:

• Doesn't notice that this is a 1NT opener, playing SAYC: ♠752 ♥J765 ♦AK5 ♣AK6.
• Despite having no entry while defending 3NT, and despite dummy positively bristling with winning black cards, continues a third trick in own suit (hearts) which is 100% sure to be won by declarer rather than switching to diamonds which would win his side two more tricks.
• With this hand: ♠AJ64 ♥J952 ♦Q95 ♣65, and hearing the following auction (none vulnerable, starting on your left): 1♣ p 1♠ p 2♠ Dble, decides that this is a good time to penalize those pesky opponents and passes — result -470 instead of -100 (or -50 or +50).
• With this hand ♠Q763 ♥K5 ♦AKQJT ♣T3 (vulnerable vs. not) after one pass on right: 1♦ 2♣ p p 2♦ Dble p p p. Dummy comes down with ♠T954 ♥T643 ♦9 ♣AQ95. The lead is a trump which you have to win in hand. You are very fortunate in having two club stoppers which will give you time to establish a spade trick or two. But the first thing you do is to use up those club stoppers so that you have to use your good trumps to swat clubs instead of establishing your own tricks.
• Believes that a balanced 18-count is enough to bid a major suit game opposite a single raise by partner at matchpoints.
• At favorable vulnerability with ♠QJT8652 ♥void ♦AK64 ♣T9 overcalls 1♥ with 4♠, then after 5♣, double, 6♣ [sic], naturally rebids 6♦. 
• Over 4♥ by RHO (nobody vulnerable, Goulash hand), bids 4♠ with ♠AK98 ♥A ♦53 ♣KJT764.
• The only way I can do this advanced player justice is to show the whole hand (from an individual):

Note that I made five calls during the auction: two redoubles and three doubles. What fun! If you click on the GIB button, you'll see that as long as I start with a high club (what else?) we are destined for +500. Unfortunately, it's now necessary to switch to a low spade to keep our 500. That seemed contraindicated to me so I switched to the ♥J. Down to 300, although I'm still on lead and now any small black card will get us back to 500. I'm fairly keen to avoid setting up a winner in dummy because I want to protect my partner's diamonds. Alas, I continued a heart. Partner gets in and at trick 5 he plays... a small diamond! A two-trick error. Wasn't it blindingly obvious that declarer has the missing diamonds? At this point, we have gone from +500 (an 83% board) to -490 (a swing of almost 1000 points and a 0% board).

Expert:

• Holding ♠J97 ♥J93 ♦KQ4 ♣AJ54 (none vul) and having dealt and opened, after the auction (opps silent): 1♣—1♥—1NT—2♠, passes (not a tragedy because about a third of the declarers in 3NT went down).
• Holding ♠AKQ53 ♥JT76 ♦742 ♣J (all vulnerable) and hearing partner open 1♣, responding 1♠, hearing double by LHO (a passed hand) followed by pass and 1NT, decides to bid 2♠. [When the same auction happened at another table, a real expert doubled for blood and ended up with 800].
• Holding ♠J9 ♥Q52 ♦AQ6 ♣AK983, having opened 1NT and hearing partner transfer into hearts and then bid 2♠, bids 2NT [The opponents mis-defend but we still get a poor score because everyone is making 10 tricks in hearts, some in game, some not].

I hasten to add that I have occasionally made some pretty big blunders on BBO myself when not really concentrating. Perhaps these good people that I reference here were talking on the phone, watching the telly, or otherwise multi-tasking. But here's the difference. When I make an error, I apologize to partner after the hand. The perpetrators of the foregoing mistakes seemed to be completely oblivious.

Passed hands may make only one free bid

It is a truth universally acknowledged that once you have made a (natural) pass you can no longer mastermind the auction. Indeed, unless partner makes an even more limiting call, such as 1NT, you have made partner captain of the side. So, partner is the one who gets to do any "operating"—safe in the knowledge that you won't hang him. Examples of operating include shaded ("third-hand") openings and "pressure" bids (preempts opposite a passed hand with less offense than usual).

So, just what are your limits as a passed hand in terms of bidding? I would say one free bid or, at the very most, two. Of course, you should answer partner's opening bid normally if you have responding values—that's not a "free" bid. You might even make a 2/1 bid since he will know that you cannot have opening count. And if partner forces you to bid again, you will honor his request. You may raise his suit, even his preempt although you will be careful about doing so since he may have been making a pressure bid.

But if the auction gets competitive, you can't just keep on bidding till the cows come home! I recall a hand from a year or two ago where my partner made three bids after having passed originally and hearing only the one bid from me. The result wasn't pretty but fortunately the details of that hand are lost.

Here's a classic example of what I mean from a recent random game on BBO (I changed partner's name to protect the guilty but used Victor Mollo's favorite epithet):

Admittedly, North made only two bids after he had passed, one of which was not a free bid. But the jump to 5♦ was itself the logical equivalent of two bids. We can make 3♦, they can make 3♠. It's hard to be sure what East would have done over 3♦. Probably with a singleton diamond, he would take the push. What would the effect of a 4♦ bid by partner have been? Hard to tell. I would guess that the opponents would either go quietly (we lose 1.7 IMPs) or bid on to 4♠ (we gain about 5 assuming we don't double which would be more like 10 or 11). As it was, they didn't double 5♦ and we "only" lost 4.3.

In the following hand, the BBO Robots were kind enough to furnish me with another example (see the following).

The first diamond call by partner isn't really a free bid, given that he has 8 points. To pass would be Quixotic. The support double in round two confirmed a full opening bid (11-21 hcp) with three-card diamond support, and suggests a balanced hand, although presumably doesn't deny a 5-card club suit. The likely result of the double, it seems to me, would be +200 or -790. Predictably perhaps, we suffered the latter fate and a (shared) bottom.

Personally, I don't think the North robot has any business making a double with no surprises in store for the declarer, and having already made two bids after passing at his first turn.

So, to conclude: once you are a passed hand, resolve all marginal calls by taking the more conservative action (often that would be pass). The only justification for bidding aggressively is having very good shape. Doubling for penalties without having the goods, is just asking for trouble.

[Note: 2014/09/18: I changed the title back to the original]