September 2005 - 57

The 12 Habits of
Highly Effective Bidders
- part 3
One of the common causes of
bridge disasters is forgetting a
partnership agreement. Even more
frustrating is a misunderstanding,
where each of you has a different
idea of a bid's meaning. No pair is
immune from these errors, but the
most successful partnerships use
strategies to reduce their occurrence.
The habit they share is:
3. They have system notes.
Those who play complex systems
run a greater risk of memory lapses
and misunderstandings, but even
pairs who play standard systems
can benefit from developing system
notes. Your document provides a
basis for making future changes,
and it's an invaluable tool for
refreshing your memory before you
play. It also provides written proof
of your agreements in the rare event
that you need to explain a bidding
decision to an appeals committee.
Probably the biggest benefit,
though, is that the actual process
of writing your notes can help you
correct structural problems in your
system. As you work through each
section of your notes, you'll be able
to identify auctions that need more
discussion, duplicated methods (two
bidding sequences that describe the
same hand type) and "idle" bids that
can be assigned useful meanings.
Who's the author?
Ideally, both you and partner
would consult on every section as
you write. In practice, though, one
person (probably the better typist)
usually volunteers to put together
the first draft. If that's you, be aware
of the first rule of writing system
notes: Don't include anything you
haven't already discussed with
partner. There's a natural temptation
September 2005

to incorporate your favorite bidding
toys, agreements you have with other
partners and conventions that you've
both said you might add "someday."
After you've both agreed on the
final version of your notes, appoint
one partner to be in charge of any
future revisions. Don't make any
changes or additions until you have
time to write them into your notes,
and never change your system in the
middle of a session.
How to begin?
The first section to compile is
your general approach. This includes
your system definition and an
outline of the information from your
convention card. If you're reviewing
your notes before a session,
the list format offers a quicker,
more organized reference than a
convention card.
The second part of this section
should be notes on your bidding
"style." This is a short description
of your general tendencies and
preferences that either vary from
or expand on standard guidelines.
It can include your partnership's
approach to hand evaluation and
other principles that apply to a wide
range of auctions.
An example of a style writeup:
Opening bids: Generally sound.
'Rule of 20' openers require two
quick tricks.
Walsh-style responses to 1.
Preempts: Sound at unfavorable
vulnerability.
Overcalls: One-level may be light
or a four-card suit. Very sound at
two level.
Takeout doubles: May be light
with classic shape and/or opposite a
passed hand. Will rarely have a fivecard major unless 17 or more points.
2-over-1 auctions: Lawrence-style
rebids. Auction can stop at four of a
minor. Forcing 1NT denies openingbid count.

ADVANCED PLAYERS

Bidding Matters

Karen Walker
kwalker@insightbb.com

Competitive decisions based on
Law of Total Tricks.
Carding: Attitude favored over
count on partner's lead. Frequent
suit preference signals.
How much to include?
The length of your document
depends on how thorough you want
to be. Many top pairs have hundreds
of pages of notes, but most
partnerships can probably cover their
major agreements in 20 pages or so.
To keep your notes manageable,
don't bother writing up descriptions
of standard opening bids and
responses. Focus instead on defining
how you play your conventions and
non-standard agreements.
Don't skimp on the details when
outlining the follow-up bids to
conventional calls. Go through all
the possible hand types and bidding
sequences and define each in terms
of point-count, suit length, intended
meaning and inferences. This is
an area of discussion that's often
neglected when you're filling out
a convention card. Lebensohl 2NT
(used after partner doubles a weak
two-bid), for example, is a couple of
words on your card, but covering all
its uses may require a full page or
more in your system notes.
Putting it all together
We'll look at a sample outline
next month.
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57
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2005
