April 2020 - 62

Advanced Players

Bidding Matters
BY KAREN WALKER

kwbridge.com

Relearning bridge
My early bridge education came
in an informal game at the K-Room,
a campus coffee shop where about a
dozen of us played rubber bridge (and
cut classes) every weekday. We were all
just social players, and a lot of what I
learned there was far from good bridge.
One staple of K-Room Standard was
that if there were three passes and you
held a balanced 13 or more points, you
should open 3NT. There was plenty of
positive reinforcement for this bid, as
the defense tended to be sloppy enough
that 3NT would usually make.
Shortly after I began playing duplicate, I tried this bid at the campus club
and went down three. When I saw my
more experienced partner shaking his
head, I asked, "Isn't 3NT the normal
bid?" None of the other three people
at the table could answer because they
were laughing too hard.
That was the first of many bidding
ideas that I had to discard when I
started playing with and against better

players. The next to go were "You must
respond with 6 points" and "Always
show your four-card major."
I learned these were not absolute
commands when my partner opened
1♣, RHO overcalled 1♠ and I bid 2♥
with ♥K x x x and an 8-count. Partner
fast-played the next hand so he'd have
time between rounds to teach me negative doubles.
If you played party bridge before
duplicate, you may have been taught
similar "rules" - perhaps not as silly
as the 3NT opening, but just as flawed.
Many included the words "always" or
"never," and you followed them because everyone else in your group did.
Did you ever hear any of this advice
when you were learning the game?
⦁ Don't open 1NT unless you have all
four suits stopped.
⦁ Never pass partner's 1♣ opening if
you have fewer than four cards in
his suit.

Bid notrump to escape a misfit.
4♣ is always Gerber.
A double of an overcall means "I
was going to respond that suit."
When you move up to duplicate play,
you soon find that your opponents are
using different rules. You start rethinking your old bidding ideas and adopting new ones, and the most successful
players keep doing that as long as they
play. When they judge that their current style and methods need improvement - or have been wrong all along
- they make adjustments.
In this series, we'll look at common
bidding guidelines that you may want
to reevaluate, rework or abandon.
These include faulty theories that are
based on myths, misconceptions and
sometimes local customs ("Everyone
in my club plays it this way"). Others
are bidding styles and treatments that
might have once been effective, but
don't work well in the modern game.
In many cases, the problem isn't the
concept itself, but confusion about
when and how to apply it. Here's a
popular agreement that seems simple
enough, but is often misused:
Not vulnerable in first seat, what's
your call holding:
⦁
⦁
⦁

♠K J ♥Q 8 6 4 3 ♦J 10 6 5 4 ♣K?
If you rely on the Rule of 20 to make
opening-bid decisions, this hand qualifies. Should you follow your rule, treat
this hand as an exception or stop using
this evaluation method? More about
this in the next issue.
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62 Bridge Bulletin April 2020

http://www.kwbridge.com

April 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of April 2020