Saturday, November 11, 2006 8:45 AM

Hand Evaluation - Openers ( Garbage Bidding )

PITBULLS:

The following is a quote from Eric Kokish in this month’s bulletin “another reason to open sound hands & not the modern garbage” . Reviewing the Bridge World accounts of Bermuda Bowls , NABC team games over 25 years starting from 1975 , it is easy to spot the era where “modern garbage bidding” began to take place. In the 1970’s &1980’s the pros more or less behaved. In the 1990’s , they went off the deep end. Meckwell due to their club system deemed that everything that was not opened 1♣ forcing did not have to be an opening bid. Marty Bergen went off the deep end with weak two’s & pre-empts & disregarding vulnerability. They even wrote books describing their modern garbage “bidding style” . They got good results & horrible results. Good results because unsuspecting opponents went wrong . This was in part because they could not believe they would do such outrageous things in the name of competing that have been taboo in Bridge since it was invented. Over time, opponents have become more wary so their good results ( surprise attack ) have taken a turn for the worse except in weak fields.

Bridge pros by the nature of their occupation must play singled handed. Their clients drop the ball with partnership concepts such as forcing passes, captaincy , bidding your hand again , disciplined openers & pre-empts. The clients simply could not defend . The best way to win is to make the opponents go wrong with swing tactics. As results make or break their livelihood , this is the destructive style in which they resorted . They built a religion based on playing the hand & competing rather than defending with their clients. This style was panned incessantly by the Bridge World in the 1990’s, but to no avail. They were not about to change as they got results with unprepared opponents & all teams seemed to have a client on it. To them, it was a way to bypass the ACBL rule against frequent psyches. A semi-psyche might confuse the folks also with no messy director calls. Partner , of course , is collateral damage.

A bad side effect is what I see in club games , sectionals & regionals today. The average players taking a page from the pro’s books , think that this is the right way to play Bridge. Horrible garbage openers , horrible pre-empts , horrible 2 level overcalls & undisciplined single handed style . Bidding & partnership Bridge has virtually become a joke. Bridge has been downgraded to VLT status. You spin the wheels so whatever happens , happens.

In the 2000’s , good teams like the Italians , Poles , Dutch & Scandinavians decided to stop this nonsense. The Italians play good disciplined Bridge . This is one reason I was cheering for them in Bermuda Bowls against the swingy Americans led by Meckwell. Kokish and others have become more vocal in the Bridge World magazine & elsewhere complaining about “modern garbage bidding”. The novelty of the garbage opening fad “to make the opponents guess” is wearing off.

    I watched the Italian team on vugraph from the recent Beijing event. They proved to me once again that destructive modern garbage bidding is not the way to play this game. Here is a comment from a commentator on Vugraph during the late stages of an Italian match.

“Brolucius→Table: I mentioned in the previous set that it is in the constructive bidding that the Italians are so excellent. They do not make any particular effort in obstructive bidding, unlike ... some other teams.”

Jeff Meckstroth of all people said after a loss to a Dutch team, “they played Bridge the way it was meant to be played” . What do you think he meant by that ? Read between the lines to get your answer.

Here is a hand that was a disaster in the final match with a Canadian team trying to qualify in the mixed teams. You are first seat vulnerable ♠Qxx ♥K ♦AQ10x ♣Jxxxx with 1 ½ quick tricks with your suit being the minors. I would not open this hand in a million years as I am just setting partner up for failure. This hand was opened & the final contract was 3NTX by the opponents making for an overtrick –950 & a terrible start to a key match. The match went down hill from there. These types of hands are psychologically devastating for a team. Why do you want to do that ? They feel passing with 12 HCP’s with a stiff king & little defense is a modern garbage “no no” . Time after time I watched teams in the Beijing Olympiad who did this sort of thing get poor results. Most bad results can be traced to a poor start by opening a hand that is nowhere near an opening bid. This modern garbage style of “opening bids” is a disease that needs to wiped out & left in the hand of pro’s playing with clients. Shooting dice & partnership Bridge are a poor mix.

Locally we have some modern garbage bidders . Maurice & Klimo subscribes to modern garbage bidding philosophy as does Osama , Willard, Chris Buchanan , Ray Grace & anybody as a partner to name a few. In order to play against them effectively , you need to know your forcing pass theory , pre-empt understandings & be very disciplined with your openers & overcalls yourself. You do not fight fire with fire. D.S.I.P. Competitive doubles assist as an antidote against modern garbage bidding tactics. Modern garbage bidders are essentially Bridge terrorists who eventually implode & bring the team down with them. They play a single handed style & partner is only needed to put down a dummy for them. Tom Gandolfo was kibitzing the Meckwell match recently at the Houston Vanderbilit & noted that Greco & Hampson played D.S.I.P. competitive doubles. Meckwell went for -800 & a few other numbers against this competitive bidding tool. Meckwell was -90 IMPS behind going into the 4^th quarter & that was too much for even them to overcome so they lost the match.

Recently in a bulletin there was a debate between Larry Cohen & Frank Stewart. Cohen opened a weak 2 with a side 4 card suit. It was not an exceptional hand just a weak 2 that happened to be a 6-4. The opponents bid & partner passed but Cohen violated captaincy by “competing” in his 4 card suit. Frank Stewart complained that partner was the captain of this auction & rightly so. He felt that Cohen took a single handed chance by bidding again. Cohen replied with the now standard excuse for bad bidding that “he was competing” . There is nothing wrong with Cohen bidding that way when his partner tolerates that sort of single handedness. What I object to is when inexperienced players ( brain washed ? ) now glorify Cohen’s silly bid in the name of competing & say Frank Stewart was wrong ! You can rationalize any wrong , single handed bid by saying you were competing !!

In the long run , singlehanded Bridge cannot work in a partnership game. Luck has a way of evening out so the poor decisions made due to single handed actions result in devastating losses. Here is an auction a while back . Lorna opened 1♥ , I overcalled 1♠ so Peter Jones bid 4♥. My partner bid 4♠ , passed around to Peter who bid 5♥ doubled by my partner. This auction is not allowed in partnership Bridge. Once Peter has pre-empted to 4♥ , captaincy reverts to the opener. This is modern bidding at its worst as Peter had exactly what he announced to partner previously. You insult partner’s decision of willing to defend by bidding your hand again because you decided it was right. Modern bidding violates captaincy quite often because “Bridge is a garbage bidders game”. You just bid single handed without a purpose & call it “modern bidding”. VLT’s anybody ?