September 2019 - 58

Advanced Players

Bidding Matters
BY KAREN WALKER

kwbridge.com

Contest their notrump? - part 9
Vulnerable at matchpoints, your LHO
opens a strong 1NT, passed around to
you. What's your call holding:
♠10 9 7 6 5 3 ♥5 3 2 ♦5 ♣K 5 3?
It's common to loosen your requirements for balancing in this auction.
Defending 1NT is often a poor result,
so players look for excuses to compete
when they hold distributional hands.
The best reason is a six-card or longer
suit or a 5-5 two-suiter, but even a 5-4
hand offers a decent chance of finding
a good partscore.
A balanced hand, even a fairly strong
one, should pass. It's too risky to look
for a fit when you have only one fivecard suit or a 4-4 "two-suiter." With
these hands, your best shot at a good
result is trying to defeat 1NT, especially when opener is vulnerable.
How far should you stretch? Mel
Colchamiro, who gave us the Rule of 8
for overcalling their 1NT in direct seat,
offers the "Rule of 2" for the passout
seat. He advises that you should balance with any hand that has least two
shortness points (based on void = 3,
singleton = 2, doubleton = 1), no matter
what your high-card strength.
The hand above and even weaker
ones - a yarborough with two doubletons - would qualify. That may appear
reckless, but it's based on simple arithmetic. When responder passes a strong
1NT opening, each partnership has, on
average, half the deck's high cards. The

58 Bridge Bulletin September 2019

weaker your hand, the more of your
combined 20 points partner will have -
and the more of your side's honors will
be well-placed over the 1NT opener.
That's the theory, but keep in mind
that your 20 points is just an average
expectation. The opponents could have
as few as 15 combined points or as
many as 24-25. If it's either extreme,
you'll probably be sorry you balanced.
What will partner expect? The
bigger problem with bidding with such
a weak hand is that your partner has
another turn to bid. Will he find a pass
of 2♠ when he holds his "average" of
17 points? If your system uses a double
to start the description of a one-suiter,
will partner know he shouldn't pass
with:
♠K J ♥A Q 6 4 ♦A Q J 6 ♣10 6 4?
If you defend: Opening leads are
a consideration, too. If you pass 1NT,
partner will probably lead a diamond.
If you bid 2♠ and the opponents compete, you've talked partner into leading
a spade. You'd feel better about bidding
with a 3-count if the points were in
your long suit.
Conventions: Your style and point
ranges for these bids are good topics
for partnership discussion. You may
want to modify your current methods or play a different convention in
balancing seat. If your system defines
double as penalty (17-plus points) in

direct seat, consider playing it as more
of a cooperative double in the pass-out
seat - 14 or more points, usually semibalanced. Partner needs around 8 or
more points to leave it in.
Matchpoints vs. IMPs: If you adopt
Mel's Rule of 2 or any other ultra-light
balancing style, reserve it for matchpoints. At IMPs, it's not worth fighting for a partscore when there's a real
chance of going for a number. Team
play is all about bidding games, and if
you ever want to find one after they
open 1NT, partner has to be able to
make intelligent decisions. He can't
do that if your overcall range is 0 to 14
points.
Have you decided on your call with
the hand at the beginning of this
article? The problem was originally
posed in 2006 in the Bridge Bulletin's
"It's Your Call" feature. The experts
were evenly split between Pass and
2♠, with many of the spade bidders expressing confidence that their partner
wouldn't hang them.
The panel offered good arguments
for each action, but my favorite comment came from this passer, the late
Grant Baze:
"Pass. We don't have a zero yet. At
some point, respect for vulnerability
has to outweigh matchpoint madness.
For me, this is that point."
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September 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of September 2019