Friday, December 02, 2005 5:20 AM

Undisciplined Bidding

PITBULLS:

There are two styles of playing Bridge. One is the disciplined style where partnership trust & respect is paramount. You win IMPS not by psychological ploys of forcing the opponents to go wrong all the time but by accuracy in your own bidding or taking advantage of the opponents “risk taking” . To take advantage of the opponents bad bidding , you must be disciplined yourself so that you are the one to be believed in competitive situations. People who play the undisciplined style are out to create action. By opening non openers , responding without a response , unsafe pre-empts , ignoring vulnerability , bad penalty doubles , psyches & bad overcalls their style is totally predicated on make the opponents go wrong. This comes at a price of course because the opponents must be believed rather than your partner . This lack of trust & discipline causes other bad decisions in the partnership. Try playing with Steve Willard , Lee Barton or Ray Grace to get an idea of this “pigeon shooting” style of playing Bridge. When Dora plays with Paula she calls their style “living by the sword or dying by the sword” .

When playing against undisciplined players experts “make them pay” . Not just with penalty doubles but that the fact that they are usually in the auction helps declarer play the hands. They give you information with their tactics on bad pre-empts , bad openers , non responses , bad overcalls etc that you can use to your advantage. Witness this hand playing against Osama & Vince Nowlan. The auction goes 1♣ and 3^rd seat by Vince Nowlan and Osama responds 1♥. I doubled as a passed hand with K10xx AJx 109xx Kx and Mr. Nowlan rebid 2♣ . BJ Trelford held Q98x Q10x KJx AQx and since partner is showing around 10 HCP’s with spades and diamonds , BJ bids 4♠ .

K	A	10	K
10	J	9	x
x	x	x
x		x

BJ gets the club 9 lead from Osama . So how do you play the hand ? Card reading is using the information the opponents have given you by their bidding.

Q	Q	K	A
9	10	J	Q
8	x	x	x
x

BJ knows that there is an opener that has 6 or more of his hand as clubs. Since he is the opener he is more likely to hold the spade Ace and with long clubs be short in spades. Accordingly BJ wins the club king and leads a small spade from the dummy and Vince plays the spade Ace. He returns a club and BJ wins the club Ace and Osama high lows in clubs which gives Mr. Nowlan 6 clubs. BJ cashes his spade queen and Vince shows out discarding a club. Pattern time ! It is highly unlikely that Vince has 3 hearts as he pulled 1♥ doubled quickly to 2♥. BJ gets a tentative count of his hand as 1-2-4-6. ( Osama did not bid 2♥ WJS which shows 6 in the suit ). Next BJ leads the heart 10 and lets it ride and Vince win his King and leads another club. BJ wins his club queen and Osama makes a nice play by discarding a heart instead of ruffing . BJ hooks the spade and leads a diamond. Vince makes a questionable play by bouncing with the diamond Ace and comes back a low diamond. Now what ? You know Osama only has 2 diamonds , 2 clubs , 5 hearts & 4 spades. What HCP’s has he shown up with for his so called response ? Only one lonely jack !. Vince has shown up with the spade Ace , heart king , J10 6^th of clubs and A?xx of diamonds. Vince has not bid his hand like he had 14 HCP’s in 3^rd seat so you go up diamond King and drop Osama’s queen for +620. Without their undisciplined 1♥ response , BJ would have no chance with this contract. The field played this hand in 4♠ down two probably because they did not get “action” from Osama. Osama was trying to “talk the opponents” out of their possible game by responding with 3 HCP. A very common Osama tactic.

Playing against another pair who are very experienced in the “undisciplined” match point game where undisciplined opening bids and responses are the norm. Everybody vulnerable and the auction goes 1♠-P-2♠-P P-X-p-? x QJxx Kxxx KQJx . Partner has made a vulnerable balance at the 3 level so must have at least 10 HCP ? partner should and will not balance with spade duplication of value unless an opening bid or better so we are down to a 30 pt deck with your stiff spade. All of partners points are pulling full weight and you have 12 HCP. You punish the balancer by bidding 4♥ in IMPS & maybe just 3♥ in match points. It turns out you are only the 10 of hearts away from making +650 as partner has Jxxx A98x Qx Axx . The vul opponents opened 1♠ on AKxxx Kx 10xxx xx and responded 2♠ on Qxx 10xx AJx xxxx . You can not believe undisciplined opponents to judge your contract. You believe your vulnerable disciplined partner to get to your vul game. They are trying to talk you out of your vulnerable game.