West must be a little bit crazy to make that kind of opening bid vul with such poor cards. Three clubs doubled looks juicy to me. I think I would pass that bid, hope for the best knowing the suits are not splitting well, and lead trumps every time we get in. “What would Bobby do”?

Hi Jane A,

The enigma of it all is that everything you say is true, but bridge being the riddle that it is, sometimes rewards aggressive actions without what a rational person would suggest doing. Even 3 clubs doubled being easily defended is not in the cards. Of course, an opening club lead should be made, but leading from 4 to the jack is not all that attractive, and what if partner has what she might think of as a perfect balancing double, being void in that suit and having great support for all others, only to find that partner has converted it to penalties with only 4 to the jack. And even then EW will take a number of tricks, approaching making the contract, because of the favorable location of the distribution dealt on this hand.

What I am trying to say is that I DO NOT endorse such weak bids (particularly while vulnerable) but sometimes they ring the bell, with the reasons being:

1. It is harder to defend than to declare, particularly so with a blind opening lead.

2. Since the level of bidding has been raised immediately, the opponents will have a more difficult time finding both their best suit to be trump and judging the level to which they land.

3. Our current improved scientific bidding methods are therefore interrupted and more guesswork enters the building.

4. Bids like these weak 2 suiters (and while vulnerable) are dangerous but the danger also applies to their opponents who have to deal with them.

5. All of the above does not change my mind as to the long range effectiveness (or lack of) these destructive actions may result, but also I do not relish having to guess my way having them thrown at me.

6. In no way are they antithetical to the ethics of the game, since no private understand (at least I would hope) exists between the “wild” opening bidders, only a desire to legally interfere with their opponents (especially above average ones) attempt at gliding to the right contract, by being given free reign to exchange information starting at the one level.

The above is merely my experience in dealing with such things and while not wanting to relegate my partnership to a game of tops and bottoms does not appeal to me, but in my self-interest, need to develop ways of handling them in case my opponents have different motives.

As to how I would handle today’s hand, my answer would lie in who was doing it to my partnership and then, at that time, decide how to combat it, by bidding out, or stopping off to instead double them. If doubling is my choice, then I have to suffer through our opening lead and then guessing (without much to go on) how to continue.

Thanks for raising this type of discussion which every aspiring partnership should learn their general approach to how to cope with such aggressive tactics used against them.

Hi Bobby,

On the topic of interfering bids, in a recent Regional pairs event, my partner dealt and opened 1H. RHO overcalled 1S and I held:

AKJ6xxx
–
10xx
K109

I passed, partner bid 2D (he was 1552) and the hand passed out making 3D. Once the auction started 1H 1S is there any way to convince partner that I want to play in spades?

At the table I was concerned that it was a psyc (it wasn’t, but I’d have made 3S rather easily), but could think of no way to “expose” it.

Thanks,

Hi Ted,

Perhaps over your partner’s 2 diamond rebid you could (and probably should) jump to 3 spades which could only mean spades, since anything else would be illogical, because your original pass allowed your partner to pass the hand out in 1 spade.

I would have thought my RHO was psyching, but, although wrong, partner should pass and we would score up +140.

Hi Bobby,

Thank you. That makes sense, although I can imagine the look of horror on my partner’s face as he tried to figure out what convention he’d forgotten.