The Hand In Question
| ||||||||||||
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pass | Pass | 1 | 2 |
| Pass (!) | 3 | All Pass | |
The Auction
With a 6 point count, South passes. Facing a 10 point count (minus a bit for the doubleton jack, West passes. North stares at a nice 16 point hand, unbalanced, and starts the bidding off with 1 diamond. East, staring at a perfect weak 2 bid in clubs, knowing there is no such thing, is happy to overcall at the two level. South considers their bare minimum responding hand with 6 points, no certain trump fit (North could have 3 diamonds), and the prospect of bidding at the three (Dark Card includes inverted minor raises, so the three bid shows 6-10) level, and decides to pass. Bidding at the two level would have shown 11+ points. West complies with the "Law of Total Tricks" and bids to 3. North is out of options; without knowing anything about South's hand (which could have 0 HCP), they are forced to pass.
The Play
With East the declarer, South leads. Given that North bid diamonds, South decides to toss the top of two honors, the K. Dummy goes down and East likes the lovely 10 clubs between the sides. 6 easy tricks there. Without diamonds to ruff, and the kings on the table in the dummy, it's going to be hard to get much else. A heart trick looks likely. East decides to play the 9 from the dummy, North ducks, and West ducks. South leads the Q of diamonds next, clearing the board. Looking to develop a heart trick, they lead the J. Dummy ducks, North ducks, and West plays the Q. Time to pull trump. A and 6 extract the remaining trump. North chucks a diamond. Without a better option, declarer plays the 7 of hearts. South plays the 9, Dummy plays the King, and North takes the Ace. North returns the 8, East trumps, south plays the 4. North would really prefer East lead, so is happy with that outcome.
East tries the 10 of spades. South ducks with the 3, Dummy the 2, and North takes with the Jack. North has a problem. If they lead a diamond, they let declarer trump in the dummy. This would buy declarer a trick. Honestly, North would prefer to lead trump at this point. The alternative is to lead away from the AQ, yielding the same result. However, one more trick and declarer is set. They lead the A of spades. North then follows with the Q of spades (so as to not hand over another extra trick). Dummy takes with the K. Rest is trump; down 1.
Discussion
There is a surprising amount to talk about in this hand. In writing this article, I went and reworked the bidding twice before settling on the above. This is the kind of hand that I want to spend a lot of time on, because I really feel like it's the kind of hand that is rarely analyzed. It's ugly, decision-prone, and almost certain to be set. It's also what happens on so many real bridge hands. For the purpose of this discussion, we'll go around the table looking at the decisions of each player based on the options available to them.
East Without the Overcall
Right now, Dark Card says you need 13 points to overcall at the 2 level. That probably needs to be corrected. East has a hand worth considering a weak two bid, and if the suit had not been clubs, and they had been in second seat, they might have easily bid 2 clubs on the six card suit.
For the weak two bid, they should probably have 1.5 quick tricks. (As a reminder: AK=2, AQ=1.5, A=1, KQ=1, Kx=0.5). Fudging AQJ to 1.5 is a bit stretching, but it's a bid I tend to make so my partner expects it. So given that I would bid 2 clubs (sort of), why not overcall that? Clearly, if you have the ability to make a weak two bid (in this case, even in clubs), then you should probably overcall at that level. Your partner just needs to know to expect you to be light. For truly strong hands, you would make a takeout double to show your strength, but strong takeout doubles ("big doubles") are not in the cards for our East.
The ACBL books on Bridge encourage overcalling at the two level with opening values, and with a minor suit, you should really prefer a 6 card suit. This hand is not quite opening values, but I'm inclined to stretch it.
The ACBL books on Bridge encourage overcalling at the two level with opening values, and with a minor suit, you should really prefer a 6 card suit. This hand is not quite opening values, but I'm inclined to stretch it.
Let's consider what would happen without the interference.
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pass | Pass | 1 | Pass |
1 | Pass | 1 | Pass |
| 2 | All Pass |
South shows the 4 card heart suit, North bids their 4 card spades, and then South suddenly goes back to diamonds? Huh?
South has figured something out. North reversed. To make a reverse of this type, you must be at least 5-4 in the suites bid. So they have to have 5 diamonds. Even if South didn't pick up on the reverse, they know North has 4 spades exactly, at most 3 hearts (or they would have supported hearts), for a total of 7. With 6 cards unknown, they bid diamonds. If their split was 3-3, you bid clubs, not diamonds (this being the reason for that rule). So they must have at least 4 diamonds. Given that South has sweet diamonds, and they know there is a fit, it seems reasonable to play there. 1NT is not looking promising with the extremely bad (it doesn't get worse than 32) doubleton in clubs. Without a stopper, 1NT is sketchy. 2 diamonds will make easy (5 trump tricks and the aces yield 7, and the spades or Dummy's hearts should buy another trick).
By getting into the auction, East blocks N-S from figuring out their diamond fit at a low level. Furthermore, they prevent the reverse. In the auction above, North has no way of knowing that South has a single point since South never bids.
The Problem With Inverted Minor Raises
So, here we are in the second deal of Dark Bridge, and we have a textbook failure of one of our bidding conventions. Last time we mentioned that conventions should be used if they help most of the time. Almost every artificial bidding convention gives up something to get something. This is the situation given up by using inverted minor raises. This hand is pretty much the canonical problem example.
Inverted minor raises reverses the natural meaning of the two and three of a minor raises. It's an application of the principal of slow arrival: the slower you bid things up, the stronger your hand. By bidding slowly, you allow for more exploration. When your hand is weaker, you want to bid higher, having a preemptive effect, as well as telling your partner 'we are just not going anywhere.' The two level response is also unbounded, allowing you to show strong hands with diamond support that could not be bid in any other way.
In practice this means that the two diamond bid would imply at least a limit raise (11+ points), and the three diamond bid (6-9). Okay, but isn't that a good thing here? South has 6 points, so they would bid 3 diamonds? Well, the problem is that North has only shown 3 diamond cards in their hand. They probably have 4, but they could have a minimum opening 4-4-3-2 hand (with 15 HCP, that would be an 1NT opening, but South doesn't know that).
Should South bid 2D? No. This would show 11+ points, and be a total psyche (Bridge has a fancy word for lie: psyche).
If South could bid 2 diamonds, North is likely to try 3 to buy the contract. We'll revisit that at the end.
Does this mean we shouldn't play inverted minor raises? I don't believe so; this structure of hand is less common than where it helps you. There are other hands where it really helps (say if South had East's club holding in diamonds).
Can South Make a Negative Double?
No. A negative double requires you to be 4-4 in the majors. Negative doubles are not in Dark Card (yet), and we are getting really far afield. I'll come back to them in detail when we deal out a hand that they help with. Incidentally, cue-bidding clubs is also out due to lack of strength. South really doesn't have any good options.
West Considers: Pass, 3, or 4 Clubs?
First, passing. If West passes, here's the auction:
| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pass | Pass | 1 | 2 |
| Pass | Pass | 2 | Pass |
| 3 | All Pass |
North has room to reverse, this tells South of the diamond fit, and they buy the contract at 3. In competitive bidding, you must show support if you have it. West must bid.
Can West jump to 4 clubs? No. The overcall only promises 5 cards (it isn't a weak two after all), and according to the law of total tricks, that would yield only 9 total trumps, so 9 tricks. The Law of Total tricks is just a way of saying that when sacrificing, you are generally correct to bid the total number of trumps between you and partner. So an 8 card fit can buy a 2 of a suit contract. Ten trumps would be a 4 of a suit contract.
But wait, I said earlier that the overcall of a minor at the two level implies a 6 card suit. Well, this isn't officially in Dark Card (in this case, it's a question of partnership understanding). I think this one falls as a judgment call. East/West are sacrificing (the play hints at that--3 clubs is down one), and given South showing no signs of life, they can probably buy the contract at the 3 level, or even encourage North/South to bid again.
Should North Double in the Second Round?
Showing what, exactly? Okay, it's probably unwise to be sarcastic to my own rhetorical voice here. You could make a case for doubling in the balancing seat in this case. It's worth thinking about. Putting aside questions of whether or not South will take it for penalties, and assuming it would be read as takeout, I would not bid it without 4 hearts and 4 spades. South would bid the hearts in this case, expecting to have a fit.
Whose Hand Is It Anyway? Can North/South Make 3 Diamonds?
We've walked through this auction enough times that in a few of them North/South get to 3 diamonds? Can they make it? North will be declarer, facing a lead from East. As East, I would probably lead the A of clubs. Don't lead away from AQ ever, but sometimes, you can lead the A. Given the club fit, North/South are probably not going to permit too many club tricks, and it's worth securing one. Dummy drops.
North as declarer, sees 5 diamond tricks, a heart and a spade, for a total of 7. They need two more; spades looks promising to develop, and maybe all those hearts will go somewhere. Be nice to rough a club in the dummy, but that's unlikely. For now, they duck the Ace of clubs, West throws the 4, and North drops the 8. East is now again on lead. They lack decent leads, so they throw the Q of clubs. West ducks, and North trumps. North wants to try and finesse the QJ of spades, so they decide to end up in the dummy after pulling trump. They lead the A, and then take the second with the K from the dummy. 3 of spades heads to the table, West ducks with the 2. North takes with the Q. North wants either East to lead to help develop a heart trick (or maybe a spade trick, but that would require an obvious play error). So they chuck off the 6 of hearts, with the hope that East takes. Otherwise, they'll be back pretty much the same place. East takes with the Q. East, sensing that their partner was the victim of a spade finesse (with the Q taking), and knowing that the dummy will ruff their clubs, really has to lead the heart back. West's K falls to the A. North returns another heart, for two more heart tricks in the dummy, two trump and the ace of spades. They make 4.
I don't think a clever line of play will yield 5 (game in diamonds), and 3NT is almost certain to go down (and go down hard) on the club lead.
By interfering, East/West steals the contract. Not vulnerable, going down one is -50; letting the opponents make 3 diamonds is -60. So East/West net +10 points.
Conclusion
- Interference is fun and profitable
- The Law of Total Tricks is important in competitive bidding
- Conventions giveth; conventions taketh away. To be useful, they should do more of the former.
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