Jump Overcalls

[pbleighton]

What's your understading of the *standard* approach on jump overcalls? What is your preferred approach in an established partnership?

 

How disciplined, strong/weak, etc. How much does it vary by scoring, vulnerability, suit, and partner being passed/unpassed?

 

White, with an unpassed partner, this is noise. Could have defense/terrible suit/yarborough. With an understanding pd can be 5 cards at the 2 level. The main restriction is not to miss a game. Generally limited to 6/7 hcp with a major, may be 9/10 with a minor. With a minor, frequently 6 at the 3 level. 6 at the 3 level with a major with the right hand or an understanding pd. No real difference between mps and imps.

 

White, with a passed partner, very wide ranging.

 

Red, somewhat more conservative, especially unfavorable and/or at imps/passed partner. Unfavorable at imps with a passed partner I tend to pass.

 

Peter

[pclayton]

In both of my regular partnerships, three out of four overcalls over 1x are Roman (2 suited).

 

When I play online, my basic principles are basically the same as a weak 2 if pard is unpassed, with the vulnerability in mind.

 

If pard is passed, I'll loosen the strings a little. If my suit is one over RHO's I'll frequently make a jump overcall on a 5 card suit, since (1♦) - 1♥ gives negative preemption.

 

When I am red / white, my jump overcalls will be very sound and good suits. I would hesitate to use the word intermediate, although I've played them as such in the past.

 

Over a preempt and in the balance seat, overcalls are intermediate bordering on strong.

[Free]

I prefer sound overcalls and trash jumps (when NV). When V I have my bid. Point is: when NV, opps have a hard time to penalize you, while V it's a lot easier.

 

NV I'll jump to 3-level on a 5 card suit with some distribution, jump to the 2-level are decent suits, while normal overcalls are sound. This works pretty well in my experience, but sometimes you just give away a game score. All the other times where opps make a mistake we gain.

 

With a pickup partner however, I'll be a good boy most of the time, and have a good long suit, you know, the normal stuff.

[inquiry]

My understand of the "standard" jump overcall is that it is a weak preemptive bid. Most people seem to have the down 3 or 4 type hand when they bid it, regardless of seat/position.

 

How I play jump overcalls, depends upon seat, vulnerabilty (ours and theirs). Let's handle these in sequence.

 

If I am not vul and they are vul, I am wild to moderately normal. I will be within 3 to 5 tricks of my preempt. If I am in third seat under these conditions I am (hopefully) unpredictable. I might have an opening hand, I might be down 5 or 6 opposite a normal looking passed hand. I frequenlty will often preempt at the two level on a five card suit, and sometimes at the three level. I have made a jump overcall at the two level on these conditions on a 4 card suit.

 

I am not vul and they are not vul. I will normally be down no more then 4 opposite a normal type hand for partner. So the minimum hand is a little better than when they are vul. In third seat, I will still possibly have an opening hand or a very weak hand, but no more 4 card preempts, and very few five card preempts.

 

We are both vul. I will darn sure not be down more than three with normal splits, and probably only down two. Being in third seat makes little difference, and I can have a fairly good hand, after all, I promise generally something close to 6 tricks in hand for a 2 level preempt and 7 for a three level preempt.

 

We are vul and they are not vul. I do not preempt at these colors. If I make a jump overcall, I expect to make that many tricks, or at most down one out of my own hand.

[gwnn]

Edit: sorry I didnt understand the question:)

 

I believe "standard" is 5-10 hcp and 2/3 top honors in a 6+suit.

 

Another "standard" is the rule of 2-3-4 or 1-2-3-4 or even more conservative, 1-2-4.

[Apollo81]

Before I answer any of these, it should be noted that it is much easier to get penalized after a jump overcall than after a preempt. You know RHO has a good hand, and since he has opened some other suit he is more likely to be short in yours. Jump overcalls are also much more dangerous after a 1M opening. If you had preempted then RHO with his 5 or 6-card major would bid it (saving you) instead of doubling, but after he has already opened he can make a reopening double even with a long major.

 

What's your understading of the *standard* approach on jump overcalls?

 

Jump overcalls are similar in length and strength to the same preemptive openings. Because it is easier to get hit, this should be a more disciplined bid in terms of suit quality and shape when the JOer is at the weaker end of the strength scale. Jump overcalls should not be 5 card suits.

 

What is your preferred approach in an established partnership?

 

I prefer intermediate jump overcalls (11+ to 15-) to 2-Major and (1♣)-2♦ as a conventional bid. My 3-level jump overcalls are more shapely and with better suits on average than my 3-level preempts. I do not become especially aggressive at favorable like I do when preempting.

 

How much does it vary by scoring, vulnerability, suit, and partner being passed/unpassed?

 

Scoring does not matter much. NV I tend to JO like I am preempting at VUL and VUL I tend to JO like I am preempting at UNFAV. Partner being a passed hand matters quite a bit when I am playing weak jump overcalls at the 2-level, as I will start to do this on some low-intermediate strength hands as well. It does not matter much for 3-level jumps.

[mike777]

Regardless of style of preemptive j/o I would appreciate discussion on Both sides of the issue of:

 

Interfering with their bidding vs telling them how to bid/play the hand with more information, ty.

 

In other words the trade offs and how one should decide.

[Apollo81]

Regardless of style of preemptive j/o I would appreciate discussion on Both sides of the issue of:

 

Interfering with their bidding vs telling them how to bid/play the hand with more information, ty.

 

In other words the trade offs and how one should decide.

A preemptive JO does not help them as much as a two-suited overcall (Michaels, U2NT) does. I usually don't worry about this particular consideration when making a JO.

[mike777]

What's your understading of the *standard* approach on jump overcalls? What is your preferred approach in an established partnership?

 

How disciplined, strong/weak, etc. How much does it vary by scoring, vulnerability, suit, and partner being passed/unpassed?

 

White, with an unpassed partner, this is noise. Could have defense/terrible suit/yarborough. With an understanding pd can be 5 cards at the 2 level. The main restriction is not to miss a game. Generally limited to 6/7 hcp with a major, may be 9/10 with a minor. With a minor, frequently 6 at the 3 level. 6 at the 3 level with a major with the right hand or an understanding pd. No real difference between mps and imps.

 

White, with a passed partner, very wide ranging.

 

Red, somewhat more conservative, especially unfavorable and/or at imps/passed partner. Unfavorable at imps with a passed partner I tend to pass.

 

Peter

This might be from last night when I made a R/S pass in first seat and Peter(partner) made a wjo :P

 

I doubled them for penalty in 2H(I guess everyone else at the table played it for takeout) and the bidding went something like:

 

P=(1c)=2d=(2h)

X?=(3h)=p=(4h)

X!!!

[Double !]

This is an interesting topic. Pardon the following dissertation.

 

If one looks at Kaplan's book on Competitive Bidding from sometime in the 60s (guess) my recollection is that he gave as a template wjo a hand with something like a QJTxxx or a KJTxxx suit and little if anything outside the suit. Needless to say, this description of a wjo has evolved over the year. Some people play them relatively disciplined, some play that the range of the hand strength and suit can vary and use some type of response for clarification (or not), some have played very undisciplined wjos, and some have sacrificed the semi-constructive nature of the bid in favor of even less disciplined bids in order to create more pressure bidding approaches. Many play that almost anything goes when white vs. red.

 

Then there is the issue of what type of hand might be expected when partner is a passed hand. How many liberties can the partnership take. Does the wjo even promise a 6-card suit at this point? (This philosophy for this approach is that, since partner is a passed hand, the pre-emptor is bidding the extent of the partnership with the wjo or 3rd seat weak 2-bid.) My suggestion is, if you are going to play wjo, remember that partner is likely to lead your suit, especially from 2 or 3 cards to an honor. Do you wish to encourage that, knowing that without a some decent internal solidity, you are placing cards for the opps. With a pick-up or even a semi-developed partnership, i would recommend keeping some degree of discipline in your wjo's. At least P then can't accuse you of making some crazy, insane bid. A wise older sage many years ago once said to me, "don't make bids that partner can criticize". So, to a large extent, you need partnership agreements of requirements for and responses to wjos (and 3rd seat weak 2-bids).

 

In the K-S system, it was recommended that the partnership keep opening 1-bids up to strength and open hands with less that opening strength with a weak 2 bid, even on a 5-card suit. So, you can see that, ask 100 bridge players from all different skill levels, and you are likely to receive 150 answers with various degrees of conviction.

 

If I had my preference, I would play Gardner 1NT overcalls where a 1NT bid is either a strong NT or an unspecified wjo. However, it is my understanding that this is not permitted, that is falls under the category of controlled psyches. IF anyone out the with a good working knowledge of what is and is not permitted, I would greatly appreciate a definitive and answer re whether or not Gardner NT overcall are legal.

 

 

TIA

 

dhl

[pbleighton]

This might be from last night when I made a R/S pass in first seat and Peter(partner) made a wjo

 

I doubled them for penalty in 2H(I guess everyone else at the table played it for takeout) and the bidding went something like:

 

P=(1c)=2d=(2h)

X?=(3h)=p=(4h)

X!!!

 

Yes, Mike expected "much more". We set them 3, and gained 12 imps on our miscommunication :P

 

I couldn't find any board where Mike's hand wasn't opened 1H, which was overcalled 2C. My hand passed with:

98x-Void-Q109xxx-1098x

both white.

At our table, Mike passed, opp bid 1C, and out of compassion for Mike's feelings I bid 2D instead of 3D ;)

 

What would other posters bid in this situation?

 

Peter

[cherdano]

This might be from last night when I made a R/S pass in first seat and Peter(partner) made a wjo

 

I doubled them for penalty in 2H(I guess everyone else at the table played it for takeout) and the bidding went something like:

 

P=(1c)=2d=(2h)

X?=(3h)=p=(4h)

X!!!

 

Yes, Mike expected "much more". We set them 3, and gained 12 imps on our miscommunication :P

 

I couldn't find any board where Mike's hand wasn't opened 1H, which was overcalled 2C. My hand passed with:

98x-Void-Q109xxx-1098x

both white.

At our table, Mike passed, opp bid 1C, and out of compassion for Mike's feelings I bid 2D instead of 3D ;)

 

What would other posters bid in this situation?

 

Peter

Playing with Mike, I would overcall 4♦ or pass, to be consistent with his schizophrenic opening style.

[mike777]

Why?

 

Do not people play more than one system or for that matter opening bid style. At least I play the same during the same session. Why the attacks?

 

When I answer here on the forums I always make clear the different systems or styles.