Balance?

[benlessard]

1D -- all pass isnt a good result but its a normal result. My overcall are heavier than the average of poster here and for me pass or 1S by south is ok. A thing im sure is that having a stiff diamond you have to be more agressive and allow for subminimum overcall because the chance of partner balancing is greatly reduced.

[dburn]

It seems to me that whether or not you decide to balance with this hand is a function of what partner needs for a one-level vulnerable overcall. If I knew that partner would not overcall 1♠ with his actual hand, then of course I would balance over 1♦. If I knew that partner would often overcall 1M with a seven count, then perhaps I would not balance over 1♦ (although I would fear a double part-score swing if partner had a few values with 4-4 in the majors, for which reason I might actually balance with 1♠).

 

For the record, although I would overcall with partner's actual hand, very many very strong players would not. Of course, they are all in the category described as "old has-beens" by a frequent contributor to these forums, so their views may safely be disregarded in present company.

[helene_t]

I wouldn't overcall with the south hand vuln at IMPs. In fact I can see myself passing as either North or South if it had been matchpoints. At IMPs I would have bid 1NT as North. Can live with 1♠ too.

[fred]

A few people have mentioned the upside of overcalling: if you don't then you might get shut out of the auction.

 

But as far as I can tell, nobody has mentioned any of the significant and very real potential dangers that could happen if you overcall this particular hand. I am not suggesting that the frequency of any of nightmare scenarios that follow are especially high or that the combined frequency of such things is enough to make up for the danger of not overcalling and being shut out. It would take a simulation, a lot of objectivity, and many assumptions about how the players would bid various hands later in the auction to figure that out. In other words, good luck coming up with any definitive conclusions about this one.

 

My sense is that this is a close call. My tendency would be to overcall, but if I knew I was playing with a partner who played sound vulnerable overcalls (as I sometimes do) I would be happy to Pass. If I did not have the 10 of spades I would certainly Pass. So for me this is a close call - any bid that is a 10 away from being a different bid can hardly be considered "CLEAR".

 

Anyways, here are some reasons not to overcall:

 

- Suppose that your LHO is going to bid some number of notrump regardless of whether or not you overcall. Suppose your partner has something like Kxxxx of hearts. Do you still want to be overcalling?

 

- Suppose that your LHO is going to bid 1NT if you don't overcall and that your RHO is going to raise to 3NT. Sometimes your partner will have a natural spade lead. Wouldn't that be nice? But your overcall will let the opponents know about this danger and keep them out of the failing contract that they would have bid without your help.

 

- Suppose that your partner has a typical hand to raise your overcall to 4S - a bunch of trumps, some short suit, and not a ton of high cards. Good chance his short suit is hearts don't you think? If you don't overcall you will get to defend 4H. If you overcall you get to "sacrifice" in 4S doubled. What would you prefer?

 

- Suppose that your opponents end up playing in some contract and that they have a 9-card diamond fit missing the Queen. Do you think they are more or less likely to play your partner for Qxx if you overcall?

 

- Suppose that you overcall, your LHO makes a negative DBL, and your partner makes a preemptive raise to 3S. Your opponents are actually good enough to figure out that, despite having the vast majority of the HCP, that they do not have a strong enough trump fit or necessary spade stoppers for notrump to have a play for any game contract. They shrug their shoulders and Double you in 3S. Are you happy? If you claim "this could never happen", then you are not playing in the big leagues where it happens all the time.

 

- Suppose the hand belongs to you and you start the proceedings by overcalling 1S (not necessarily with this particular hand). Apparently you play very wide-ranging overcalls. Do you think that this is a good thing or a bad thing in terms of your own constructive bidding?

 

If you actually considered these and other scenarios before you stated that your opinion that you thought it was CLEAR to overcall, then I can't say that I disagree with you by much more than the 10 of spades. But if the reasoning behind your opinion of CLARITY was based solely on "fear of getting shut out", perhaps this post will have provided some valuable food for thought.

 

Bottom line: Overcalling 1S on this hand is definitely not a free bid that can only gain. You will lose significant numbers of IMPs by doing so a significant % of the time.

 

Whether or not such losses are enough to negate the gains of overcalling 1S is far from CLEAR to me. If it is still CLEAR to you then you are either truly a bridge genius or you are deluding yourself.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[jdonn]

Whether or not such losses are enough to negate the gains of overcalling 1S is far from CLEAR to me. If it is still CLEAR to you then you are either truly a bridge genius or you are deluding yourself.

I think you made an extremely fair post until the very end. If you change the spades to AQT9x, I'm sure you would consider it a clear overcall, despite every potential disadvantage you mentioned still existing (many of them largely negated of course).

 

My point in saying that is that every player will have a different cutoff at which point overcalling or not is very close to them based on a multitude of potential advantages and disadvantages. Simply because this hand falls very close to your particular cutoff is not a reason to say something so harsh to people for whom this hand is farther from their cutoff.

 

Over time I've almost completely refrained from arguing with you on the forums or even disagreeing with you at all (I think the first time I ever did was the thread on masterpoints last week), not because of bridge skills but because I feel like your guest to a large extent and so was never totally comfortable doing so. I mean who am I to ever disagree with the person responsible for giving me my main form of entertainment, for free! :) But I can not leave this without saying that last comment of yours really came across to me as pejorative toward many people and was very disappointing to me.

[fred]

Whether or not such losses are enough to negate the gains of overcalling 1S is far from CLEAR to me. If it is still CLEAR to you then you are either truly a bridge genius or you are deluding yourself.

I think you made an extremely fair post until the very end. If you change the spades to AQT9x, I'm sure you would consider it a clear overcall, despite every potential disadvantage you mentioned still existing (many of them largely negated of course).

 

My point in saying that is that every player will have a different cutoff at which point overcalling or not is very close to them based on a multitude of potential advantages and disadvantages. Simply because this hand falls very close to your particular cutoff is not a reason to say something so harsh to people for whom this hand is farther from their cutoff.

 

Over time I've almost completely refrained from arguing with you on the forums or even disagreeing with you at all (I think the first time I ever did was the thread on masterpoints last week), not because of bridge skills but because I feel like your guest to a large extent and so was never totally comfortable doing so. I mean who am I to ever disagree with the person responsible for giving me my main form of entertainment, for free! B) But I can not leave this without saying that last comment of yours really came across to me as pejorative toward many people and was very disappointing to me.

Sorry Josh, but I don't think you interpretted my last sentence the way I intended (not that it was meant to be directed specifically at you in any case). But even so - I left it open for anyone to conclude "I guess I must be a bridge genius" which is hardly an insult :)

 

The confusion (my fault for not being clearer) stems (again) from the difference between what is meant by CLEAR. In particular:

 

1) Clearly right from a pure bridge point of view

 

vs.

 

2) Clearly right in the style that I prefer to play

 

The point I was trying to make was that only true bridge geniuses know the answer to 1. Others who think they do are not being honest with themselves. The question is simply too hard to ask let alone to answer.

 

I suspect you will agree with this. I suspect you might even agree that those who disagree need a wakeup call if they are ever going to reach their potential as bridge players. If reading the occasional "pejorative" comment from a successful player does the trick, they might actually thank me for my frankness one day.

 

My last sentence was not about 2 at all. And here I agree with what I think it is you are saying: if 2 applies to you then so be it. By definition you are clearly "right" to overcall 1S if this is the case.

 

Please don't refrain from disagreeing with my posts in the future just because I am me as opposed to someone else. I frequently learn from your posts (and those of many other posters) and it is more likely that I will learn something from a given post if that post happens to disagree with my view.

 

Besides that, I suspect that many people who read Forums find it entertaining and stimulating when some of the leading players in our community disagree with one another :)

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[jdonn]

That's very fair. It's true, when I say it's clear I don't mean it's clearly going to work well, I mean the style that I strongly believe is winning would put this clearly above the cutoff for a minimum overcall B) Sorry if I misinterpreted what you meant.

 

I remember a hand from Meckstroth's book (played against you I believe!) where he overcalled on Axxxx and out. Without the overcall he would have been on lead against 3NT and led this suit to his partner's KQx for the set, but after he bid you found 5♣ to win a game swing. I don't think Meckstroth offered much explanation beyond something like "I believe one must accept some losses like this, because bidding on these hands has been worth thousands of imps to me over the years." Anyway the given overcall reminds me of that.

[mike777]

Thank you all for the wonderful posts very entertaining and helpful.

 

Yes this was against Fred. :)

 

For the record Jeff overcalled on:

J7...AT653....7532...63 at fav vul not both vul....fwiw...page 141.

 

Jeff lost 12 imps as they now bid 5clubs, other table played 3nt which went down but Jeff stood by his overcall.

[Lobowolf]

Just my reading, but I certainly didn't find Fred's comments to be particularly pejorative, and to the extent that they might be perceived that way, they'd read as far less so than comments directed to Mike, who was just asking for some elaboration as a learning opportunity.

[dburn]

An observation: as the emphasis in competitive bidding has changed from trying to punish impertinent opponents to trying to bid to your own best contract, so the opponents have gained a licence to be impertinent. Whereas this comes with many of the disadvantages Fred mentioned in his earlier excellent post, experience suggests that in the present climate, it may well be long-term winning bridge.

 

Certainly Meckstroth and (particularly) Versace among the world's truly great players would stand by a style that makes a 1♠ overcall on

 

♠A109xx ♥QJxx ♦x ♣xxx

 

clear, or even CLEAR, at any vulnerability. But Meckstroth has been playing with Rodwell for a while now, as has Versace with Lauria, and their partnerships have in place [a] methods to deal with the impact on their own constructive bidding of an overcall that has a range of about 4-18 hcp; the awareness that if partner overcalls 1♠ and the opponents bid confidently to 3NT, a heart lead from king-fifth might work better than a spade lead from two small; [c] the temperament and the experience to shrug and say "well, that was a bad result, but look at all the good ones these overcalls have gotten us over the years".

 

You can be absolutely certain that Meckstroth is not kidding himself or anyone else when he stands by his 1♥ overcall; if he found that it was a loser in the long term, he'd have stopped doing it years ago. But that does not make it a winner in the long term - or even clear, let alone CLEAR - for you to do it playing with an unfamiliar or even a regular partner, who will lead your suit when that's wrong, or raise your suit with a doubleton when that's wrong, or generally fail to act with discretion when the auction gets tough. Style is not a personal thing; style is a partnership thing.

[cherdano]

With Han, and with some other less regular partners, I play a style where the 1♠ overcall is clear. I agree with Fred's and David Burn's posts.

 

I find it interesting that Fred does not mention as a drawback the possibility of going for a telephone number in 1♠X. This is what I always see people screaming about when they see light one-level overcalls, but in practice it seems to happen very rarely.

[han]

In my experience the main cost of these light overcalls occur when you have a sound overcall.

[dburn]

I find it interesting that Fred does not mention as a drawback the possibility of going for a telephone number in 1♠X. This is what I always see people screaming about when they see light one-level overcalls, but in practice it seems to happen very rarely.

No one plays penalty doubles any more, and despite what you may have heard, it is actually quite a bit harder for the opponents to catch you by playing penalty passes, and takeout doubles from opener, than by playing penalty doubles by third hand.

 

Indeed, the worse your contract is, the harder it is for them to catch you, for if you happen to have alighted in a 5-0 fit, your overcall will travel round to opener, who will not balance with three cards in your suit because he's only supposed to balance on a minimum with shortness in your suit - isn't he? Even when he has a maximum, he might (for one reason or another) choose to re-open with 1NT or some other bid, rather than double.

 

Now, this does not mean that you should give up negative doubles in favour of penalty doubles of one-level overcalls. What it does mean, as I remarked, is that you are at greater liberty to make Meckstroth-Versace-Cherdano-Jdonn one-level overcalls, because you will go for a huge penalty far less frequently than you "should".

 

A word to the wise, though: if you are going to make these overcalls, you should think twice (or at least one and a half times) about them when your suit is headed by the ace. If they do catch you for 1100 or so in 1♠, you'd rather that your team-mates might bid and make a slam at the other table, and you don't need me to tell you that their chances of doing that are much greater when you don't have the ace of your suit than when you do.

[Lobowolf]

It seems to me that whether or not you decide to balance with this hand is a function of what partner needs for a one-level vulnerable overcall. If I knew that partner would not overcall 1♠ with his actual hand, then of course I would balance over 1♦. If I knew that partner would often overcall 1M with a seven count, then perhaps I would not balance over 1♦ (although I would fear a double part-score swing if partner had a few values with 4-4 in the majors, for which reason I might actually balance with 1♠).

 

For the record, although I would overcall with partner's actual hand, very many very strong players would not. Of course, they are all in the category described as "old has-beens" by a frequent contributor to these forums, so their views may safely be disregarded in present company.

Very good point emphasized by this point -- the interrelationship between the direct action tendency and the balancing action tendency. Within the same partnership, it's inconsistent (at some point) to stretch both to overcall and to balance.

[Lobowolf]

Just to clarify, by "(at some point)" I mean to say that it's not necessarily inconsistent on this hand; I just mean that the more likely you are to intervene (i.e. the worse your own person "borderline overcall" might be), the less likely you (your partner) should be to balance.

[whereagles]

Whether or not such losses are enough to negate the gains of overcalling 1S is far from CLEAR to me. If it is still CLEAR to you then you are either truly a bridge genius or you are deluding yourself.

guess I'm deluding myself :blink: I think it's clear to butt-in 1♠.

 

However, I do agree it might not be clear to others.

[Lobowolf]

Whether or not such losses are enough to negate the gains of overcalling 1S is far from CLEAR to me. If it is still CLEAR to you then you are either truly a bridge genius or you are deluding yourself.

guess I'm deluding myself :blink: I think it's clear to butt-in 1♠.

 

However, I do agree it might not be clear to others.

What would your borderline 1♠ overcall look like?

[jdonn]

No one plays penalty doubles any more, and despite what you may have heard, it is actually quite a bit harder for the opponents to catch you by playing penalty passes, and takeout doubles from opener, than by playing penalty doubles by third hand.

 

Indeed, the worse your contract is, the harder it is for them to catch you, for if you happen to have alighted in a 5-0 fit, your overcall will travel round to opener, who will not balance with three cards in your suit because he's only supposed to balance on a minimum with shortness in your suit - isn't he?

This is true but it's counterbalanced by something else. Sometimes the opponents RAISE the suit you were about to make a penalty pass of, and you get to double it a level higher. I have seen this especially a few times where I haven't raised partner's weak two bid on a hand where others might, and it goes P P X P P P.

[whereagles]

What would your borderline 1♠ overcall look like?

Hum.. good question. It would depend on non-technical factors (opps, pard, match status). At a neutral status (whatever that is), maybe something like

 

Axxxx

QJxx

x

xxx

 

I'd overcall on this one about 1/2 the time. Drop the jack, or put it elsewhere, and I wouldn't move; add a ♠J/T9 or ♥T and I would bid most of the time.

[mike777]

What would your borderline 1♠ overcall look like?

Hum.. good question. It would depend on non-technical factors (opps, pard, match status). At a neutral status (whatever that is), maybe something like

 

Axxxx

QJxx

x

xxx

 

I'd overcall on this one about 1/2 the time. Drop the jack, or put it elsewhere, and I wouldn't move; add a ♠J/T9 or ♥T and I would bid most of the time.

i pass

 

no problem.

[fred]

Recently I asked 5 of the my friends in Las Vegas the question that follows. All of these guys have won multiple North American Championships. All have significant international experience and some are World Champioships. Over the years, my many discussions regarding bidding with all of these players have always been stimulating and often enlightening.

 

Here is how I phrased the question:

 

- both sides are vulnerable and your RHO opens 1D

- you have 5 spades to the Ace. You may or may not have good spade spots

- you have a small singleton diamond

- you either have QJ10x of hearts and xxx of clubs or you have xxx of hearts and QJ10x of clubs (this is by far the most interesting part of the problem in my view)

 

Under which circumstances, if any, would you overcall?

 

I have ranked the answers from most to least aggressive. These should be seen as my attempt to remember/paraphrase my friends' opinions - they are not direct quotes. Sorry to any of them if I am putting the wrong words in their mouths.

 

Geoff Hampson: I would always overcall if my QJ10x was hearts. If my QJ10x was clubs it is close. I would probably overcall tend to overcall, but might Pass if my spade spots we weak.

 

Curtis Cheek: I agree with Geoff except I would tend to Pass if my QJ10x was clubs (unless perhaps my spade spots were spectacular).

 

Marc Jacobus: I would never overcall if my QJ10x was hearts. I would always overcall if my QJ10x was clubs.

 

Drew Casen: I would never overcall.

 

Fred Hamilton: I agree with Drew (facial expression suggests "obviously")

 

Apparently if you are looking for a CLEAR answer, you are not going to find it in Las Vegas <_<

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com

[jdonn]

Apparently if you are looking for a CLEAR answer, you are not going to find it in Las Vegas <_<

Isn't there a very strong correlation between the aggressiveness of the answers, and the age of the people? Maybe Drew is an outlier but that's it.

 

In fact, if I was really cynical I might suggest there is a correlation (not a perfect one, but it exists) between the aggressiveness of the answers, and how well the answerer has done lately in top-level bridge...

 

I find the distinctions being made between hearts and clubs very interesting, especially since people draw them in opposite directions. It's not the type of thing I would have ever considered on this hand.

[pclayton]

Apparently if you are looking for a CLEAR answer, you are not going to find it in Las Vegas :(

Isn't there a very strong correlation between the aggressiveness of the answers, and the age of the people? Maybe Drew is an outlier but that's it.

 

In fact, if I was really cynical I might suggest there is a correlation (not a perfect one, but it exists) between the aggressiveness of the answers, and how well the answerer has done lately in top-level bridge...

 

I find the distinctions being made between hearts and clubs very interesting, especially since people draw them in opposite directions. It's not the type of thing I would have ever considered on this hand.

We are talking a limited sample, but I would take the current records of Geoff and Curtis against the others. It's very interesting how the heart suit is a benefit to Geoff, and not a negative.

 

I'm pretty sure the entire Italian team would find this a no-brainer overcall.

 

I'll stop short of calling a 1♠ overcall 'evolutionary' <_<

[kenrexford]

I'm in the Casen-Hamilton school, and I agree with Han that the main problem with light overcalls is when you have a sound hand. I'm not sure what partner is supposed to do after 1♦-1♠-3♦ when my range could be extremely broad and my heart length 0-4.

 

I agree, however, that there is an interesting problem if the clubs were QJ10x, but for a different reason. I think I might stick in a two spades overcall with body in spades, but never 1♠.

 

I think another interesting twist, however, would be if the colors were us-red-them-white, because of the availability of a 2♠ intermediate jump overcall. Obviously, this hand is not suitable for an intermediate jump overcall, but the presence of that option reduces or tightens the range for the simple overcall somewhat.

[fred]

Here is how I phrased the question:

 

- both sides are vulnerable and your RHO opens 1D

- you have 5 spades to the Ace. You may or may not have good spade spots

- you have a small singleton diamond

- you either have QJ10x of hearts and xxx of clubs or you have xxx of hearts and QJ10x of clubs (this is by far the most interesting part of the problem in my view)

 

Under which circumstances, if any, would you overcall?

Mike Passell: I would never overcall.

 

Fred Gitelman

Bridge Base Inc.

www.bridgebase.com