Saturday, July 22, 2006 10:57 AM
Hand Evaluation – Misfits (
Overbidding )
PITBULLS:
Overbidding
by experts is not just a random event. Tom Gandolfo as been accused of “liking
to bid” . Quite often his overbids turn out successfully. Why ?
Tom uses hand evaluation to pick
his spots. Quite often when Tom “overbids” he has a singleton or void in the opponent’s suit. This is gold
when evaluating your hand. Quite often when Tom overbids he has a
5-5 or 6-5 distribution or a long
suit. Again this is hand evaluation
rather than overbidding.
There is good overbidding as
opposed to bad overbidding. Bad overbidding is bidding in misfit auctions , using poor hand evaluation or ignoring the
40 HCP’s in the deck rule. If you
mid in a misfit auction , quite often you are
entering a mine field & just giving them
an option to extract a huge penalty. Let the opponents play misfits. You know that you have wasted
value in their suits , you do not fit partner’s suit
or you have bad quality HCP’s. You know that your hand should be devalued but you overbid anyway. Some instances you are just
not aware how many HCP’s exist in the deck. You should be able to count the HCP’s from the opponents bidding , so bidding 3NT on a flat 19 to play when the
opponents have told you that they
have the remaining 21 is horrific overbidding.
Overbidding is also defined as
using poor hand evaluation. Quite
often when one partner overbids & game is made , partner would have invited or driven to
game anyway. My partner held ♠Qxxxx ♥Jxx ♦Jxx ♣Kx & Maurice opened 1♣
, I doubled & Susan bid 1♥. You have 7 HCP
consisting of a poorly
located ♣K , a queen & two jacks along with a balanced hand. Certainly a very poor hand using hand evaluation , but enough to freely
bid 1♠. Partner invites by raising to
2♠ so now you bid game
& it makes for +420. Now back up & overbid by bidding 2♠ &
partner leaps to 4♠. The game is a reasonable undertaking not because you overbid ,
but due to partner having a very
strong hand in spades. What if partner had less ? Your
overbid would not have worked
& you go for a needless minus.
You are not even close to having
an invitational hand.
When you have a choice of an
underbid or an overbid
, use hand evaluation as your
guide. How well do you fit partner’s hand ? Should you be encouraging partner ?
A Tormentee
held this hand tonight ♠x ♥QJx ♦A10xx ♣AKQxx & opened 1♣ .
Partner bid 1♠ but RHO crawled in with a 2♥ so do you overbid
with a diamond reverse (a game force when pushing partner to the 4 level for a preference ) or do you underbid by bidding 3♣ ? Neither , I
manufacture a bid of 2NT to show my playing strength & heart stopper.
Partner passes 2NT & you go down one but they can make 3♥ . If you reverse into diamonds , you end up playing 5♦X for 3 down.
Back to good overbidding . Location , location
& location are 3 very good reasons
for overbidding. Your partner
opens 2♠ vul so you were planning to
re pre-empt to 3♠ with ♠Axx ♥Kx ♦Kxx ♣J1098x but RHO doubles . The odds have now changed as your
kings have “grown up” . So instead of
bidding 3♠ you bid 4♠. Both Aces are on side
so you pick up +620 & Tom is accused of “overbidding”.
Another
common place to overbid is after
the 1NT overcall. The HCP’s are behind the opening bid so all of a sudden hands
that would have invited become game bids. Why ? The
finesses are bound to work & partner knows how to play the hand for endplay
& squeeze purposes. Inviting opposite a T/O double is done lighter for the same
reasons. Slams are sometimes bid on “positional makes” as
the pre-empter is behind the big hand so finesses are odds on to succeed.
Use
the fact that the location of the cards in the opponents suits “sits right” for overbidding purposes. A QJxx behind the openers major are promoted to
two tricks so quite often turn a 1NT bid to a 2NT bid or a 2NT bid to a 3NT bid . This is standard expert “overbidding”
. Bidding the
table is another way experts
overbid. I held ♠Q98x ♥J9 ♦AJ9x ♣Q10x so I passed , heard Osama pass & Kiz opens 1♦. Vinnie Nowlan bid 2♠ so what has the “table action” told me ? With the pre-empt to the left of the biggest hand of the table ( Kiz ) , the finesses are going to win. There is a decent chance that I have two spade
stoppers with the length in their suit , so my 2NT bid
turned into an “overbid” of 3NT.
As expected ,
all the cards were on side but we were
in 6♦ which made an
overtrick. When terrorists are out to get you with frequent pre-empting they are giving
you information. If you have length in their suit
, you know that their communications are fowled
up for defensive purposes. They locate cards for you , flash
their distribution to assist you in the play of the hand. Terrorism is
sometimes suicidal for them
when experts refuse to be blown up by their actions.
Overbidding by experts is quite often “dynamic hand evaluation” where finesses are
taken during the auction &
you use the “table” to determine your
overbid. In Montreal , a French team told
Tom “I hear you like to bid” . Quite frankly among all my partners
, I feel Tom is an underbidder despite his Canada
wide reputation. It is Kiz who is crazy J