Tommy's Bridge Blog: Support Doubles and Redoubles

Tommy's Bridge Blog: Support Doubles and Redoubles

Rosencranz and Expanded Advances

My recent blog was intended to introduce Rosencrantz Doubles and Redoubles as responses to overcalls when Advancer (overcaller’s partner) has 3 card support. In what I thought was a “free toss”, I quickly dispatched advancer’s other supporting options as either a cue bid to show limit raise hands or a law of total tricks preemptive bid to show weaker hands with 4+ card support. “Incomplete and over generalized” says my Rochester, New York, partner Carol Van Der Voorn. “You wouldn’t make the same bid with 4 card support and 0-6 hcps as you would with 7-9 hcps, would you?”

Now even with a blog to flog with, you don’t want to mess with Carol. Three reasons: her beliefs about good bridge bidding are more than a little entrenched, she’s always ready with proof and citations and she is mostly right. I confess, I was trying to end the unrelated Rosencrantz discussions without putting too fine a point on “other supporting bids.” No such luck, back to the drawing board.

Let’s set up an auction: 1c/1h/x/? Here are the first two hands for Advancer: (i) xx, Qxxx, Qxxxx, xx and (ii) Ax, QJxx, xx, Jxxxx.

All my novice readers are on testosterone overload, so I think they would have no trouble bidding 3 hearts on hand (i). It is the new bridge that “the less you know the more important it is that you bid.” I was a guest in a novice game recently and I think I declared 1 hand! Hand (ii) is a little more troublesome. The usual choices are bidding 2 hearts, cue bidding 2 clubs (to show a limit raise and support) or preempting to 3 hearts..

Now if those are your only choices, I think in the long run with hand (ii) you will wish you had preempted by bidding 3 hearts. The hand is too weak for a cue bid and you run the risk that overcaller will misread your hand and run away with the auction. If you make the simple supporting bid of 2 hearts, as sure as God made green tomatoes you are going to hear opener bid 2 spades. Another sign of modern bridge, the pass and double cards are missing from the box, so everybody takes the push. Now without the “boss suit”, it will be hard to ever regain control of the auction.

The Mixed Raise
There is another choice for hand (ii) that I neglected to mention. The bid is some something called a ”mixed raise” which is shown by a jump cue bid in opener’s bid suit. It is a bid that is both preemptive and constructive, requires 4+ trump, generally has one defensive trick and will fall in the 7-9 hcp range. Mixed Raises usually have 8 or 9 Losing Trick Count.
Let’s look at a few more examples: (iii) Axx, Kxxxx ,xx, JTx (iv) Kxx, KJTx, Jxxx, xx (v) KJ43, KJ65, xx, xxx. All of these would be suitable for a mixed raise to 3 clubs in the example sequence.

Most of you play "Bergen" raises when you are responding to a major suit opening. The mixed raise has nothing to do with Bergen Raises, but note that all of the mixed raise hands look very much like the same hands that make a 3 diamond response playing Bergen Raises.

If overcaller has a standard overcall with 7 Losing Trick Count, he will simply bid 3 hearts and that ends the auction. If overcaller bids any other suit below 3 hearts it would be a game try. If Advancer has an 8 LTC hand he should accept and bid 4 hearts and with 9 LTC return to 3 hearts. Overcaller may bid 4 hearts directly with a strong overcall or excellent distribution. Remember that overcaller and advancer need to have a combined LTC of 14 or less to have a reasonable play for game.

The Fit Showing Jump
If you want a bid for every occasion, there are other supporting bids that Advancer can make. Now we are moving from intermediate play to the advanced category. Fit showing jumps show 4+ card length in overcaller’s suit, a good 5 card suit of your own with 2-3 working honors and 10-11 hcps.
The hand might look like this xx, KTxx AQxxx, Jx. Assume the same bidding sequence 1c/1h/x/?. To show the “fit showing jump” you jump in your 5 card suit, so in our sequence the bid would be 3 diamonds. You might say, well I could have made a simple cue bid on that hand. True enough, but with the fit showing jump you are passing additional vital information to overcaller. If overcaller holds the King of diamonds, his hand just got a whole lot better. Light contracts are made on double fits.

The Splinter
Surely you didn’t think I was done. The bidding is again 1c/1h/x/?. As advancer you hold xxx, QJTxx, AKxx, x. A cue bid could be made to do the job, but again it doesn’t really show the power of this hand, much of which lies in the single club. While it technically has only 10 hcps, the honors in sequence supporting each other and the singleton, make it a very strong playing hand in support of hearts. With this hand I think it is correct to show the splinter by bidding 4 clubs. Against any kind of disciplined overcall, this hand should have a good play for game.

So now if you combine the two ways to show 3 card support with Rosenkranz, the standard preemptive raise, the cue bid to show the limit raise, the Mixed Raise shown by the jump cue bid, the Fit Showing Jumps shown by jumping in your own 5 card suit and the Splinter Bid showing support and shortness, I believe you have a full menu to show your support for partner’s overcall. Now all you need is a graduate student at MIT for a partner!

Rosenkranz Doubles and Redoubles

Last week I had an inquiry about Rosenkranz. That would be George Rosenkranz, a world renowned chemist, the founder of a major drug company, a pioneer and leader in the development of steroids and one of Mexico’s leading citizens. He also is a bridge expert, winning 14 North American Championships, writing 11 books on bridge and a major inventor of bridge gadgets. Perhaps he is best known in the bridge world for the popular bridge convention that still bears his name, the Rosenkranz Double and Redouble. Although the conventional bid does not receive that much attention in Florida, in other areas of the country it is almost as routine as Stayman.

In general Rosenkranz Doubles and Redoubles are used in response to an overcall by partner to describe your supporting length and top honor holding in the overcalled suit. Let’s first work on Rosencrantz Doubles.

If the bidding has gone 1d/1h/1s, a Rosenkranz Double of the 1 spade bid is purely informational and would promise partner that you have exactly 3 card support for hearts and one or more of the top 3 honors in the suit. By way of contrast, if you bid 2 hearts over 1 spade instead of doubling, it would also indicate exactly 3 cards in the heart suit, but would deny any of the top three honors. If you made a Rosenkranz Double your hand might look like (a) xx, Kxx, Axxx, Jxxx. If you bid 2 hearts you might hold (b) Kx, JTx, Axxx, Jxxx. So already we have passed some useful information to partner.

The Rosenkranz Redouble is closely related, except in this case you right hand opponent has made a negative double rather than bidding 1 spade. So the bidding has gone 1d/1h/x/. Now, if you redouble you are showing three card support to one of the top three honors and if you bid 2 hearts you still show 3 card support but deny a top honor. So with hand (a) above you redouble and with hand (b) you bid 2 hearts.

We have covered 3 card support, what do you do with 4 or 5 card support? Exit George Rosenkranz and enter Larry Cohen. We follow the law of total tricks and bid to the appropriate level. You are now out of the realm of Rosenkranz and you are just upping the ante hoping to preempt opponents or on a good day actually buy the contract. Rosenkranz Doubles and Redoubles are made on limited strength hands that are sufficient to make a single advance of the overcall. The hand should not have more 10 hcps. If you actually have 3+ card support and limit raise or greater values, then you must cue bid opener’s suit to pass this message to your partner. This is just old SAYC.

So now we can see that we have really sliced and diced advancer’s hand and completely described to overcaller the supporting strength, length and top honor holding in the overcalled suit. This information may be useful to overcaller in competitive bidding, but let’s face it, when they open the bidding, most likely we are going to be defender’s and we want to get off to a good start without giving away a trick on the opening lead. Visualize that overcaller might hold AQxxx in the overcalled suit. The best defense may to be to grab our heart tricks before they go away. But is it safe to lead? If partner had made a simple raise he does not hold the King so you would not want to lead the suit, but rather wait for partner to lead it. If advancer has made a Rosenkranz Double or Redouble, advancer is marked with the King and you can either safely lead one of your honors or underlead the Ace/Queen if you want partner to lead back through declarer. Note that we also have an exact count on the heart suit.

I should point out that some play Rosenkranz as requiring one of the top 2 honors. That is only a matter of style, but it is good to talk to partner about it. There is more assurance of not making a disastrous lead playing the top 2 only, but you don’t get to use the convention as much. Experience will tell you, and as in most things in bridge, it boils down to trade offs. The use of Rosenkranz needs to be marked on your convention card and the use of the convention is alertable.

My recommendation is to start using Rosenkranz Doubles and Redoubles and fine tune your personal preference from there. There is very little downside, the convention has a relatively high level of occurrence and is easy to recognize. Partner will be happy to know that you have 3 card support, and even happier if you have one of the top three honors.

To my critics who allege that I never provide any useful stuff, this blog post is my best defense.

The Road to Match Point Success

In the process of creating joy and happiness in my life, I find lots of ways to be unproductive. One of my hobbies is reading bridge books. Now that may not seem so unique, since thousands of new bridge books are sold each year, many of which are never opened. I depart from the crowd somewhat since the bridge books that I read are often 40 years old. This is what you do if you can’t play a lick!

There is nothing new about playing the cards. Good declarers and good defenders of yesteryear would be equally good today. The language of bridge is bidding, and the changes that have come in bridge are the development of its language. In no place is that more important than in match point play. The part of bridge linguistics that interests me most is its etymology, the origin and development of the language of bridge. There may be many out there that share that interest, but the only one I know personally is Jim Bailey, one of my partners in Rochester, New York.

The more you read old bridge books, the more you realize that the development of bridge language moves slowly and that change takes place over long periods of time. Players who have learned the game in the 21st century undoubtedly think the style called “two over one game force” (2/1) is cutting edge technology, recently discovered. Not so!

Last summer Jim and I were both reading “Five Card Majors Western Style” written by Max Hardy in 1974. Max was describing a bidding system almost identical to what we today call 2/1, and he attributed it’s development to two Los Angeles players, Richard Walsh and John Swanson, who had been developing it since the 1960’s. A reading of Max Hardy’s many subsequent books on this subject will show that in large measure what Max did for 25 years was tweak an old system and drive it to the fore front of bridge bidding; to the point that competitive bridge in the United States is today synonymous with that system.

The ACBL has about 350,000 members. What you may not know is that the European Bridge Union has more than twice that many members and very few of them know or care about 2/1. Although many systems are used though out the rest of the world, most of them are based on what is generally referred to as a “Big club System” where all strong hands are opened one club to facilitate better bidding with big hands.

In the interest of spreading my wings and learning more about those systems, I am in the early stages of learning to play Precision. I started backwards, first reading “Precision Today” by Brent Manley and David Berkowitz. I quickly realized to understand Precision Today you have to understand Precision yesterday. So, I have gone back to read some of the old books on Precision by C.C. Wie, Terrence Reese, Eric Jannersten and yes, even Charles Goren, all products of the late 60’s and early 70’s.

I am currently reading “Match Point Precision”, largely written by Ron Andersen, who is best known for his book “Lebensohl Complete.” Match Point Precision, last revised in 1978, is a connection between the system as it was developed by Wie, and the high power system that is played today by so many top professionals. Probably of more general interest are Andersen’s comments on the keys to success in match point play.

For starters, he says “The only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.” With that introduction, he goes on to say that those who win consistently in match points are those who:

1. Use a comfortable, sound, workable bidding approach.

2. Exercise a fine working knowledge of duplicate bridge at the table. (Not the Monday Morning Quarterback type who always know what they, or more often their partner, should have bid or played after the hand or game is over.)

3. Have the ability to concentrate throughout a game or match. (Ouch, that hits home!!)

4. Use good judgment.

5. Are both opportunistic and observant.

6. Are able to get the most out of both partner and partnership by first and foremost being a good partner.

In concluding, the author mentions a 7th key that is more important than the rest. Making his point, he quotes Kipling who counseled “to meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same.”

So now we see that the one thing in bridge that has never changed is the road to duplicate success.

Matchpoints and Major Suit Fits

If you dig back a ways in duplicate bridge, particularly during the days when 4 card majors were opened, from the outset the hand was bid in a manner to end up in no trump almost by default. While you still see 4-4 major suit fits being played in no trump contracts, modern bridge correctly teaches that these hands should most often be played in the major suit fit for the simple reason that they usually make an additional trick in the suit contract. The major reasons for this preference are:

1. The trump suit acts like a stopper if the opponents have a long suit to run or establish before declarer gets his ducks in order.

2. With the 4-4 fit, if either of the partners has a short suit, it can be ruffed in the other hand, and yet, most often, control of the trump suit is maintained.

3. If either hand contains a singleton, it is almost always preferable to play the 4-4 fit in the major suit.

If you are thinking of rejecting the major suit in favor of no trump, consider the following criteria.

1. Hand Strength. The 4-4 fit is almost always superior if the hand has 25-26 hcps, or to put it another way, to consider no trump on the hand, it should have extra values like 29-30 hcps. These extra values are insurance against the opponents running a suit. In the later case, most often both contracts will make 11 tricks.

2. Holding in Short Suits. The absence of middle honors (queens and jacks) in your short suits is a favorable factor in playing the suit contract. When your short suit is made up of Qx, opposite KJx, then the suit produces a natural trick and the value of the ruff goes away. Same thing with Jx opposite QT9.

3. Holding in 4 Card Side Suits. This issue is much like 2. above, but with a different face. If your 4 card side suit contains Queens and Jacks, the ruffing value is frequently wasted because you often end up ruffing out 3rd and 4th round natural winners. If your side suits are headed by Aces and Kings and otherwise have empty values, the shortness in the other hand will be useful in ruffing out losers in the suit.

4. Trump Holding. I know it seems like the 4-4 fit always faces a 4-1 split in the suit, but it only happens about a third of the time. But that is often enough. If the 4-4 trump suit contains good intermediate honors like KTxx opposite QJxx, the 4-1 split by itself will not create a loser. Conversely, if the suit is Axxx opposite Kxxx, the 4-1 split will always cost you an additional loser in the trump suit. Thus, if you reject the 4-4 major contract in favor of the no trump contract, it is best to do so when you suit has weak intermediate honors.

These criteria come from bridge expert Kit Woolsey in his book Matchpoints (1982). He says that unless you have 3 of the 4 criteria, play the 4-4 fit in the major suit, but it is better to have all 4 present. If you don’t want to draw subtle distinctions, stay with what your teacher told you! Play the 4-4 fit in the major.

The 5-3 fits in majors have the same considerations, but in that layout the shortness, if it is to have trick saving value, has to be in the hand with the short trump. Not as convincing a case, but still probably right. It also makes the case for playing the 4-4 fit as trump even if you have a 5-3 fit in the other major. The rule is pretty well known, but the reason often escapes even better players.

If the supporting hand is 4342 (three trump), with the doubleton it is almost always better playing the 5-3 fit than no trump. I fought that rule for a long time arguing that the possibility of doubleton vs. doubleton evened things out, but I am grudgingly giving up that position. In these cases, the hand with the 3 card support is probably in the best position to set the final contract. Even if the hand is 4333, no trump will only be the superior contract if the combined hands have all suits stopped and contain extra values.

Now don’t come to me with your tales of how two novices got all the matchpoints playing a hand with an 8 card major suit fit in no trump. More often than not, it is a case of the experts defending giving the hand less than an expert defense.

Where's Tommy?

That’s the question that many of my readers have asked as I have not made a blog post since November 2008. Reports of my demise are largely rumor. Three things are going on that have impacted my availability.

There is, of course the economy, and getting my own little sand box in order has taken up a lot more time than I wanted to give it. I can’t imagine that some of my readers were not similarly distracted. I hope that is behind me for a lifetime.

I have also been suffering with a very painful case of bursitis. There are many bursae located throughout the body, little fluid sacks located near major joints. The ones that are troubling me are located near the Greater Trochanter (otherwise known as the hip bone) which have become inflamed. This is usually caused by some overuse problem, and will only get better when the overuse is corrected. In my case the irritant is sitting for any prolonged period of time. In order to get ahead of this problem I have had to give up most of my desk and computer time and severely limit my bridge and driving. With therapy and rest I have just started to feel some relief, and hope I will have it behind me soon. In the meantime, it is nice to be making some positive headway. It took a long time.

Last, but not least, I got an e-mail last September asking me if I would learn and play the Precision system of bridge. My challenges are not always wisely undertaken, and in this one I bit off a bunch. I have two partners in this venture with me so that together we play about 10 games a month. Since the Precision System is a stand alone system not based on any other major bidding system, it has been pretty much going back to square one. We all decided to base our play on a style used by David Berkowitz and Larry Cohen and outlined in a book entitled Precision Today of which Berkowitz is a co-author. The nice thing is that we are all on the same page with a given source of reference. The worst thing is that we often do not know what page we are on and often seem lost in the index.

We try to take our lumps in style and remember why we did it in the first place—intellectual curiosity. After about 6 months we are just getting our heads above water. Perhaps in a future post I will outline what we feel are the systemic advantages. At the moment, I doubt that Meckstroth and Rodwell are feeling the earth tremors. My next post will go up soon entitled “Double the Pleasure with Double Finesses.” Thanks for waiting around for me.

Defending Against Two Suited Overcalls

Although not all good players agree, many top competitors have moved away from the “over/under” treatment of bidding two suited hands suitable for Unusual No Trump or Michael's overcalls. The classic approach has been to use two suited bids when the hand has less than 11 hcps, or more than 17 hcps. The theory holds that with the middle range hands (12-16 hcps) you attempt to bid both suits in an effort to give partner a measure of hand strength.

With the significant emphasis on interference in today’s game, and the overriding importance of describing the distribution of the hand, many good players have abandoned the over/under approach after discovering that many times they never got a chance to bid the second suit and fully describe the hand, let alone preempt opponents. Show shape first and then values! The importance of the preempting opponents is hard to overrate at any level of play.

If you don’t think so, try getting to a good contract starting at the three level. Yes, there are defenses to two suited bids, and some pretty sophisticated ones, and not unlike Bergen Raises, there are many ways to play them. I am talking about defenses like “unusual over unusual” in one of its many faces. Even for those who know the conventions, there is often disagreement over what responder’s bidding of overcaller’s suits means … and just when you get that straightened out, a sequence like 1h/2h (Michael's showing spades and an undisclosed minor) comes along and now you know only one of opponent's suits, so 50% of the conventional bids have been swept off the table.

In this post, I will deal only with defending against Unusual No Trump. Many players still play an older style of Unusual 2NT which always shows minors. More modern teaching treats Unusual No Trump as showing the lower of the two unbid suits. So 1c/2NT shows diamonds and hearts and 1d/2NT shows clubs and hearts. After any major opener, 2NT always shows minors. For the purposes of this discussion, let’s say that overcaller is a “Modern Millie” playing "two lowest," although it really doesn’t change our discussion of competing after an Unusual No Trump overcall.

If partner's opening bid was a major, Unusual No Trump always shows minors so don't bother to ask questions. If partner's bid is 1 club or 1 diamond, take a peek at their convention card and see if they play it "always minors" or "2 lowest." That information is in the No Trump Overcall section of the card.

The key to finding our best contract is that overcaller has announced two suits, (let’s stick with minors) so we use the three level minor suit responses as part of our constructive bidding. There is no universally accepted meaning of these three level bids, and over time the meanings have changed. Recently, I had a discussion about competing over two suited overcalls with expert Karen Walker, a monthly Bridge Bulletin contributor. Her internet site is a beauty, be sure to visit it at http://www.kwbridge@comcast.net/. In a classic case of “do as I do and not as I have written,” she disclosed to me her most recent approach to this problem. Instead of “Unusual Against Unusual” or “Lower-Lower” as some call it, she called her modified treatment “Lower=New/Higher=Old”, but she still uses overcaller’s two suits to describe responder’s hand. Here’s how it works. Assume an opening bid of one heart and 2NT by LHO:

1. The bid of three clubs (lower suit) shows 5+ cards in the unbid major suit (new suit) and an opening hand. It generally denies a fit for opener’s major. In this case the new suit would be spades.
2. The bid of three diamonds shows a limit raise for opener’s major suit, in this case hearts. Agree with partner whether it can show just 3 card support. Also think in terms of support points.
3. The three level bid of opener’s major suit is a simple mixed raise showing 6-9 points and 3+ card support.
4. The three level bid in the opposite major (in this case spades) shows a six pack and looks like a hand that you would have opened with a weak two spade bid. Maybe KQT854.

The minor suit responses are often switched around, and in fact are shown in reverse in Karen’s presentation on defending two suited hands on her web page. Her change is recent and for what I think is a good reason. When responder shows a 5 card suit in the opposite major and and an opening hand, he will almost always lack 3 card support for partner's major. Suppose opener has 7, AKJ53, K642, 543. As responder you hold KQ6432, 53, J53, AQ. The bidding is 1h/2NT/? Responder’s hand is too good for three spades, so it must be treated as an opening hand with 5+ spades. You gladly bid 3 clubs hoping opener has some spade help or 6 hearts. Alas, the hands do not have an 8 card major fit and Opener needs to have a way to announce this without getting any deeper. Here is the bailout. When responder uses the three club bid to show the five card spade suit/opening hand, opener, if he doesn’t have a six card heart suit, or three card spade support or the stoppers to bid 3NT, can still bid three diamonds as an “escape” bid which says “pard, we have a problem, please do something intelligent.” Not perfect, but at least an early warning. Here a bid of three hearts or three spades has to be to play, either of which might be the only contract to make.

Here are some other bids to consider. Three no trump needs no description, that is good minor suit stoppers and to play. The responses of 4 clubs and 4 diamonds are splinters in those suits looking for slam in opener's major if there is no duplication of values.

Responder can also “double” which shows 10+ hcps (balance of power) looking to double one or both of the minor suits. Double generally denies the availability of one of the other bids shown above. Opener should usually pass to give responder an opportunity to double any suit advancer bids. If advancer bids the suit responder wanted to double, then responder whacks it again when it comes around. That’s penalty. If responder does not double, then competitive bidding should continue, since either we defend against their contract doubled or we play the hand.

Not a perfect result, but if you are going to let opponents play three of a minor (with a high fit probability) when we have the balance of power, reach for the jelly beans cause this ain’t going to be a pretty result!

Notice two things. You probably do not currently have a specific defense against two suited overcalls, or if you do, either you or partner will not remember it correctly. Secondly, it is very irritating to opponents when you start bidding their suits. This is a two way lesson. First, have a defense, maybe like the one suggested above or any other one that works for you. Second, use two suited overcalls as often as you can, if you bid again, partner will surmise that you really have something!

What if the two bids don’t show minors? We are nothing if we are not flexible. Bidding overcaller’s lowest suit always shows the new suit and bidding the higher of opponent’s suits shows a limit raise for partner’s opening suit. Just take your time and calmly get this adjustment correct. If you get a tempo call, be polite and deny everything!

How about those occasions where there is only one known suit? First, this comes up a lot less frequently (only 12.5 % of the time), so get the “two known suits” drill down first. Then read Karen Walker’s “Defense Against Two Suited hands (Part 3).” Wait long enough and I probably will blog about it!