Responding to Weak 2 Bids (Part 2)

In Part 1 we viewed the bidding from responder’s side and discussed how to recognize invitational and game going hands and how to bid them. It did not surprise me that my commentary raised the ire of many supporters of the “feature’ treatment. Confidentially, I think they just did not want to admit that they had wasted all this time and energy on a bid calculated to be more counterproductive than helpful. Others wrote me that I was trying to make the game too simple (suggesting that it is impossible to simplify bridge) and that there are no substitutes for minds that cannot deal with significant complexity. Well, I reject that as well, and again suggest to those of my readership in the novice or intermediate category that you look at my simplistic “Red Light/Green Light” solution. The conservative nature of the treatment may cause you to miss a close game or two now an then, but it will never lead you to games you should not be in. Looking at it from a match point standpoint, missing a tight game will still get you no worse than an average minus, whereas being in a game that is hopeless from the start will almost guarantee a bottom.

What do you do as responder when you do not have an invitational or game going hand. Assume RHO has made a take out double. Here are some choices that I like, although as usual they probably do not enjoy universal support. If as responder you hold:

1. Kxx or Axx in partner’s bid suit, raise partner’s bid to the 3 level. This identifies these two specific holdings and will help partner with his opening lead if he has (god forbid!) bid a broken suit. Assume partner holds KJxxxx. It is probably cash out time and partner now knows that you hold Axx, so he can safely lead away from his tenace. Your failure to make the raise may also prevent partner from making an otherwise disastrous lead in his suit.

2. With more than 3 cards in partner’s suit, raise as you would under the Laws of Total Tricks. Thus with 109xx raise partner’s 2 spades to 4 spades. The concept is most reliable where the hands are unbalanced. If you have a square hand and the vulnerability is against you, it gets more risky.

3. With 3 cards in the suit not supported by the Ace of King you have two options.

(a) Note that the Law of Total Tricks would say raise partner to the 3 level. Since that bid is already taken (see 1 above), we need another bid to show this holding. That bid is a conventional 2NT which asks partner to bid three in his bid suit.

(b) If you have a suit that you would like led other than the weak 2 bid suit, you bid that suit. This is purely lead directing and says nothing about the length or playability of the suit. We don’t intend to play a contract in that suit, and if the bid is passed partner will safely correct at the 3 level (note that we do have 9 trump). Your bid may have saved partner from a disastrous lead that gives a trick away or may direct him to the killing lead. In matchpoints you do not have to set the hand, only take one extra trick.

4. Rarely it happens that you have a suit of your own that you think is probably better than partner’s suit. This becomes more appealing if you have shortage in partner’s suit. Don’t expect much support from partner since he is already known to have 6 cards in another suit. Since a simple change of suit would be lead directing (see 3b above), you will have to make a jump shift to show this hand. This better be a special hand!!!

5. If you do not have a holding that fits on of the above options, simply “PASS.” The negative inferences of a pass will not be lost on a good partner.

With all that I have said, I will pass on two pieces of wisdom from my excellent partner, Howard Christ, that are worth thinking about. First, “the pass card is the most under used card in the box.” Second, “unless you think partner needs to know, don’t over inform declarer.” Now that I have preempted his comments, let me say that I think there is more danger that partner will give up a trick on the opening lead than your bid will tell declarer something he does not know about the weak 2 bidder’s hand, or for that matter, your holding.

If you use these treatments, you will need to “alert” all bids by responder other than a pass or raise to game.

Responding to Weak 2 Bids

Visualize that your partner has opened a weak 2 bid in 1st or 2nd seat. Partner’s work is over, do not expect to hear from him again unless you make a forcing response. As responder, your work has just begun. While the weak 2 bid is meant to create headaches for the opponents, sometimes that turns around when you discern (horror of horrors) that you actually have a hand with some real values. In those cases, if you and your partner do not have effective systems and the communication skills, you will likely be “hoisted on your own petard.”

The first decision that responder has to make is “when I add my values to what my partner is likely to have for his weak 2 bid, is a game, or even a slam, a practical possibility. I cannot emphasize too strongly that you must make this analysis on tricks, not high card points. Except for the trump suit, all honors other Aces and Kings, or Queens supported by Aces and Kings, are to be disregarded. Partner has more losing tricks than winning tricks, and you need to cover several losers in partner’s hand if game is a prospect. This introduces the concept of “cover cards”.

Count cover cards as follows:
A=1 cover; AK=2 covers; AQ=1 1/2 covers; KQ=1 cover Kx=1/2 cover.
If you have a singleton or a void and at least 3 cards in partner’s bid suit (2,3,4 is OK) , you can count the shortness as a cover card. If you have at least 4 cover cards you have a “green light” to explore the hand further. To get the answer, you need to find out how many tricks partner can take in his own hand so you can add his winners to your cover cards. Thus, if you have 4 cover cards, you can make a game in a major if partner can take 6 tricks.

If partner has any discipline at all, it is almost guaranteed that he can take a minimum of 5 tricks and a maximum of 6 tricks. So if partner opened with AKxxxx, xx, xxx, xx, that is 5 tricks. If partner opened with KQxxxx, xx, Axx, xx, that is 6 tricks. If partner opened with QJ10xxx, xx, Kx, Kx, that is 5 tricks. If opener has 7 tricks in his hand, it is too good for a weak 2 bid and should be opened with 1 of a major. If partner only has 4 tricks in his hand, the hand is too weak to open at any level and the thing to do is to pass and see what happens. Remember, if you pass originally with QJ10xxx, xx, xxx, xx, you are not barred from further bidding, and if you do pass and then make a call later in the auction, partner will not misinterpret your strength.

So, assume I hold 4 cover cards, I need to make inquiry. Suppose I only have 3 cover cards, it should be safe to pass. If I hold 5 cover cards, I can bid game without inquiry since 5+5=10. Almost universally, the inquiry bid is 2NT which is forcing. There are many response systems that can be used after partner bids 2NT.

One such system is generally known as “feature” in which opener bids any suit at the 3 level if he has an Ace or King in that suit outside the trump suit and rebids the opened suit if he does not. It is both simple and worthless! A respected bridge author has said “I consider feature an absurdity”. I could not agree more. Find something else, even if you have to make it up.

Another system is called “Ogust”, developed by a now deceased bridge expert. In Ogust opener shows whether he has a good hand and/or a good suit as follows: 3 clubs=bad hand, bad suit; 3 diamonds= bad hand, good suit; 3 hearts= good hand, bad suit; 3 spades=good hand good suit; 3NT top three honors in the bid suit. If you do not have a lot of experience and a facility for remembering a lot of bidding detail under pressure, this treatment can easily get mixed up and cause more problems than it solves. First, you have to agree with partner on what is a bad hand or suit and what is a good hand or suit. My personal guideline is that a good hand is 8+ hcps and a good suit is 2 of the top 3 honors. If this is not complicated enough, I should warn you that not all players using Ogust agree on the order of the responses. Some show the hand and suit in exactly the reverse order, so before you play the system with a new partner, you have to ask about the Ogust responses. Even if you get all this worked out, you still have to translate partners response into his trick taking ability. I would not assume partner can take 6 tricks unless his response shows a good hand and a good suit.

I think bridge is already too complicated. There is not an unlimited amount of storage space in our brains. Every time we take on excess baggage in the form of a complicated system, something else has to give, and often it is not an even trade. For novices and intermediates, I suggest using a simple system that I call red light/ green light. Following a 2NT inquiry, opener bid 3 clubs if he can take 5 tricks and 3 diamonds if he can take 6 tricks. Now responder simply adds together opener’s winners and responder’s cover cards. If you get to 10, bid 4 in the major, and if not rebid the opened suit at the 3 level. This is not invitational, it is a sign off!If the suit is diamonds, you need to work on a total of 11.

Say what, you want to play 3NT! Jack Brawner, who writes for the Florida Bridge News, asked Jeff Meckstroth when to bid 3NT and when to bid 4 of the major against a weak 2 bid. Meckstroth replied “are you getting bad results when you bid 3NT?” When Brawner said Yes”, Eric replied, “there is your answer, don’t bid 3NT.” Brawner says that now he never tries for 3NT and that he is well ahead of the game.

In the next post we will wrap up with a quick discussion on responses to weak 2 bids when you don’t have game potential.

The"X" Factor - Do You Have It?

Before I walk across the table and discuss responding to preemptive bids, we need a little change of pace. Having been involved in various forms of competition most of my life, I became acutely aware that in athletic endeavors it is not always the most gifted athlete that steps up to the podium to take the trophy or medal. In all forms of competition and at all levels, there is an “x” factor that enables certain competitors to succeed when on paper they should be doomed to failure. They have a mindset that convinces them that losing is not an option and that, no matter what the odds or the state of adversity, victory is right around the corner if they will only bear down and tough it out. These people are what I call “Grinders”, and while they are often identifiable, no one seems to be able to explain exactly why they succeed.

I got to wondering whether this “x” factor was only present in competitions involving physical skills, or whether it can also be a factor in games such as bridge. This sent me to the Internet and a site that mentioned the “x” factor and referenced a book entitled “How the Experts Win at Bridge” by Burt Hall and Lynn Rose Hall (1996). Who? People that know me would bet that you could not find a bridge book title that I didn’t know about, but there it was. Having already used up my bridge book budget for 1997 and beyond (by February no less), I decided to ask before I ordered. I sought out the only person that I know of who has read more bridge books than I have, my bridge teacher, Pat Peterson, of Hernando, Florida. Pat’s response was a little surprising. She said “Of course I know the book, I own it and refer to it often, it is a wonderful practical resource.” I next looked at the used book sites to see if I could find it “on the cheap.” Amazing, in a world where bridge books are being discounted before they hit the shelves, this book was offered only at its original price of $16.95. That in itself was quite a recommendation, so I gave up a week of bridge games and bought it. When the favorite bridge books of the experts was published in a recent Bridge Bulletin, almost all of them listed How the Experts Win at Bridge. It turns out to be one of the most practical bridge books that I have ever read. It is not a “wishy-washy” presentation. The authors give you clear direction.

Sure enough, in a section entitled “Some Final Thoughts on How to Advance your Play,” I found a subsection on The “X” Factor. It turns out that this element was first mentioned in a Bridge Bulletin Article by Roselyn Tuekolsky in the January 1996 Bridge Bulletin. In summary, both resources concluded that there is an “x” factor in bridge that is vitally important to the success of all top level players. It is an elusive quality that transcends talent—often described as guts, competitive spirit or simply killer instinct. People with the “x” factor never give up. Even if they are hopelessly behind in a knockout match, they do not understand that; it never enters their mind that they cannot win, and as a consequence they often find that +1400 that turns the match around. They apparently do this by simply summoning their resources and going for the jugular until the bitter end. Often it is not as dramatic down 5 vulnerable doubled. The classic situation in bridge is when opponents have found a game contract that is apparently impregnable, and a defender, refusing to give up, finds a way (such as an uppercut or trump promotion) to bring the contract to its knees.

Now that we have examined the concept, I am sure you are saying, of course, I know people like that, but who wants to play with those miserable unhappy people? A grossly unfair statement. Often competitiveness is mistaken for unpleasantness simply because the player is in what I call “the zone”, and has shut out the world to completely focus on the problem at hand. If they did not have that single minded skill, they would not have the “x” factor. Simply stated, not all highly competitive bridge players are unpleasant and not all unpleasant bridge players have the “x” factor.

The expectation of duplicate bridge is that anyone paying an entry fee is entitled to do whatever it takes (within the bounds of the Laws of Bridge and ethical behavior) to succeed at the cost of the other participants. Your entry fee does not entitle you to play with smiling conversationalists: conversely it does not entitle others to treat you with rude behavior. No one, even the super talents, is excused from the application of the “zero tolerance” standard. Admire those with the “x” factor; if you want major success, find out how they summon it up. Find one for a partner if you can. If I told you who they are, you would be stealing all my partners!