Thursday, November 09, 2006 11:40 PM

Hand Evaluation – Partnership Bridge ( captaincy )

PITBULLS:

One of the main aspects of partnership Bridge is that once you have described your hand to partner , you transfer the decision over to her side. If you do not , you are in effect bidding your hand again so single handedly making the decision for the partnership. If you have a big hand in HCP’s , it is the little hand that must have the final say . Partner knows more about your hand than you do of hers , once you have indicated your strength. The little hand is the great unknown as yours has already been described. This is the captaincy part of partnership Bridge.

Also if you have a distributional hand & the vulnerability is right , do you bid your hand again ?. If you have described your hand , partner is aware of your distribution & partner is aware of the vulnerability, so you do not have to make the decision for the partnership. You have ♠AK109xx ♥x ♦x ♣ KQJxx , the vul opponents open 1♦ so you overcall 1♠ which gets doubled. Partner passes & RHO bids 2♥. You now make the excellent descriptive bid of 4♣ & they bid 4♥ so around to you again. You have described your hand perfectly to partner . The vulnerability is right so should you sacrifice in 4♠ ? No , no & no as partner has 5 of their trump so 4♥ goes at least 3 down vul. If you do bid 4♠ , they now bid & make their cold 5♦ !! Just an 18 IMP swing ! Change your KQ of clubs to the Ace , then you are allowed to bid your hand again with a D.S.I.P. double. D.S.I.P. competitive doubles are the only way a good partnership is allowed to bid their hand again. Anything else is master minding. Always ask yourself , has partner heard me describe my hand. If you are unable to describe your hand to partner , by all means bid again.

My hand was ♠Q ♥109876 ♦xxx ♣xxxx so I would have taken the non vul save in 5♣ which goes for –100 but I figured we could beat 4♥. If partner does make a D.S.I.P. double & they leave it in , bonus. However , they may pull to 5♦ which makes , so a D.S.I.P. double is iffy . Bidding your hand again with a D.S.I.P. double is a luxury that comes with playing that particular tool. Without that particular understanding , bidding your hand again is single handed nonsense & insults partner. Sometimes it takes guts to pass nice distributional hands , but if you trust your partner ……..

Do not bid partners hand for her , bid your own hand. You have ♠10xx ♥xx ♦KJx ♣KQxxx everybody nv partner opens 1♠. Your RHO bids 4♥ so you double which in your methods just shows cards. Partner bids 5♥ so now what ? You have exactly what partner expects you to have for your initial double. You do not rebid the same values you have already shown so you bid 5♠ which makes for +450. Jumping to 6♠ is bidding partners hand for her . Bid your own hand once , do not repeat yourself !!