2008-02-20 14:09

Hand Evaluation – Partnership ( Weak Partner Syndrome )

PITBULLS:

If you are a decent player who plays in weak fields with weak partners quite often , you can come down with a disease called the “weak partner syndrome”. This disease entails hiding your hand from partner & the opponents but expecting partner to describe her hand to you. Your favourite trick is to overcall at the one level when you have a pre-emptive two bid or 3 bid. Partner is collateral damage anyway so why invite her to the party. You effectively remove partner from the auction when you have this disease. You opening bids or lack thereof are disrespectful to partner. You do not care if you have the quick tricks or HCP’s for an opening bid as you are out to destroy the opponents’ auctions. Make them guess is your battle cry & them includes partner. She somehow has to field the situation & not get in the way of your grand plan. You play “wait & see” & do not double to describe your hand immediately. You will place the contract later. You believe the opponents bidding first , as partner does not know what she is doing anyway.

This tactic or disease is necessary in order for you to make the final decision. Bridge bidding is a skill . You must develop a skill of painting a picture of your hand to partner so a joint decision can be made. If you have an 8 card suit , you do not open at the one level if you can help it. If you have a 6-6 , you leap many levels of bidding to inform partner of that fact. You invite partner to the party so she can assist with the decision making process. This is the “fact finding” step of partnership Bridge bidding.

There is a law in Bridge. If the opponents have bid some number of NT & you did not double , you cannot have a good hand. Good players use this basic fact so jumps can be defined as pre-emptive when they have had a chance to double their NT bid. Here is a simple auction from a recent sectional . A Calgary player had this hand ♠Ax ♥AKQJ109x ♦Jxx ♣x everybody vul. LHO opens 1♠ & RHO bids 1NT. The 1NT bid is like a red flag so you can double to simplify your bidding sequence. A double immediately signals a good hand so that initial description is off your chest. Turns out partner converts your double , which is music to your ears. If they run , you now leap to 3♥ & get to your baby +650 in hearts. If they pass , it’s a brutal down 6 or –1700 with best defense. The player holding this hand pre-empted 3♥ which of course was passed out. The same bid which he would make with ♥QJ109xxxx or ♥KQJ1098x . This biding was a very good example of not inviting partner to the party for a joint decision.

You “master mind” a Bridge auction where you do not seek partners input. Pro’s do it all the time relying on the opponents bidding & good educated guesses with their hand. They get by , but a true partnership will always do better as both sides are contributing to the final decision. Do not get fixated on your own hand. There are opponents lurking & partner to take into consideration. Players suffering from the “weak partner syndrome” suffer from narcissism . They do not respect the opponents bidding to determine ”ownership” of the auction. Their hand is the “be all & the end all” at this table. As George Bush says “ I am the decider”. They thread needles with their bidding & do not default to the logical bridge axiom of “taking your plus” .

Do not take risks without consulting partner first. Do not convert doubles when partner’s holding in their trump suit is an unknown. Partner is left out of the decision as you are just guessing she may have values in their trump suit for her responsive, D.S.I.P. or T/O double. In theory , you are describing your hand to partner by converting for penalty. You are saying I hold bad duplication of value in their trump suit for you. We probably cannot make anything our way so let let’s get our plus this way. Duplication of value is a killer for both sides. People with this disease are “bad gamblers” & change the nature of the game to taking a series of single handed shots by them. They go for numbers & make bad penalty doubles because they are taking single handed gambles. Changing the game of Bridge to slot machine status. They try for slams multi times & partner makes the “death response” multi times. You bid the slam anyway & go down. Was partner trying to tell you something ? You do not care.

Bidding with a good defensive hand ( 14 HCP in controls ) in their auction also stems from the “weak partner syndrome” Hand evaluation differentiates an offensive hand from a defensive hand. Defensive hands have quick tricks like ♠Kx ♥Axxxx ♦Kxxx ♣Ax whereas an offensive hand shows distribution ( 6-5 or the like ) . By bidding with a defensive hand oblivious to the fact that they own the auction , you assume that partner will not read anything into your bidding & not pull your penalty doubles. You also assume the opponents will not double you as they cannot make anything their way as you have defensive tricks. This “style” does not work as a good partner will read your initial bids as having some meaning or purpose so you are inviting disaster. Partner assumes you are painting a picture of your hand by bidding in their auction so will bid accordingly. Weak partners never pull your penalty doubles as the initial bidding has no meaning for them anyway. Bridge bidding is simplified if you “think in quick tricks” . This habit allows you to easily identify defensive hands as opposed to offensive hands.

Having a weak partner erodes trust. You do not even think forcing pass theory as partner will drop the ball. You Q bid instead of making a natural bid as you fear that partner will pass your forcing bid. You do not bother looking at her signals because her discards are probably random anyway. It matters not that partner has passed 3 times, will bid her values for her anyway. You take no inferences into what partner did or did not do as she bids her hand over & over again anyway. Bridge anarchy is rampant so you default to a dictatorship.

People inflicted with this disease will not read anything into partner’s opening leads. Why is partner leading that suit ? The lead is so irrational it must be a singleton does not occur to them . What was partner’s reasoning for leading that suit ? She must have a stack in one of declarers’ suits as there is nothing in her suit. Smith echos are useless as we do not bother to look or realize when declarer is playing her suit. We are oblivious to what is happening at the table as we have the “disease” so we are Bridge incapacitated. There is only one cure which requires a drastic attitude change – “Bridge is a partnership game”. Learn the advantages of working with partner to get the best Bridge result.