Wrongsiding contracts.

[jtfanclub]

My partner tonight (who I consider advanced) deliberately 'wrongsided' a contract.

 

In Precision:

 

1C (16+) 1NT (8-11 Balanced)

3NT

 

Partner had (approximately)

 

Qx

Qxxx

Kx

KTxxx

 

Now in this case, he obviously wanted to be delcarer and for good reason- it was likely that any lead would give us a trick as long as it came around to him. 2C would have been a more accurate bid but it would have made those doubletons vulnerable, and in all probability we were still headed for 3NT.

 

But he then made a much more sweeping statement that- when each side has at least 8 points, it doesn't matter which hand is stronger for who declares. What matters is who has the 'danger holdings', like the honor doubletons shown. That's just as likely to be the weak hand as the strong.

 

Do you agree?

[the hog]

Pretty much. This business of wrongsiding/rightsiding is a bit dubious. Secondary honors generally want the lead coming around to them.

[mishovnbg]

Like my friend Boian like to say: "Bridge is concrete game". Contract can be wrongsided with any strength, but statisticaly better to play it by stronger hand. We play with him 2 way system, where in most of cases you can pickup side to play contract.

Misho

[Free]

This is a black or white poll, I want to vote gray, since it hasn't got to do much with HCP imo. Generally we know that rightsiding usually means "declare with the strong or the completely unknown hand", but I noticed that when both have around 10+HCP it doesn't matter much. Then you go for the unknown hand ofcourse. It also depends on which HCP you have. Say you get a hand like

[hv=s=sjxhaxxxdjxcaxxxx]133|100|[/hv]

then you don't want to play yourself imo since you won't win anything from the lead...

 

In this particular case, both hands are unknown, and since the chance is big you go for 3NT anyway, I think 1NT is a pretty good bid. Opps have a blind lead, and still don't know much about your hand. The lead might as well give you a K or Q you wouldn't make otherwise. You could even fool opps by playing your 5 card ♣ and letting them discard ♥s because they think you don't have 4!

Normally you shouldn't miss a 4-4♥ fit, so there's not much problems imo, and ♣ slam seems far away (unless p has a lot of extra's).

[mikestar]

Points do matter a little--the stronger hand is more likely to have the type of honors that need the lead to ride up to them. Also a balanced hand is more likely than an unbalanced hand to have these holdings.

[EricK]

Which side should declare never depends on who has more points, it depends on who has holdings which need protecting.

 

If the weaker hand is say ♠xxx ♥AQ ♦xxxx ♣xxxx and the stronger hand has no tenaces and no high cards in ♥, then the weaker hand should be declarer despite having only 6 points. In fact, make the weaker hand's ♥ holding Kx, and he should still be declarer.

 

Of course, there are other issues to apart from right-siding. If, from the bidding, one hand is unknown and the other very well known, it might be best to make the known hand dummy.

 

Eric

[paulhar]

There are other issues that determine the right side too. If your side is going to declare and one opponent has shown a long suit that rates to be led, you are usually better off having the bidder on opening lead to protect any honor held by the bidding opponent's RHO. This is true even with something like Kxx opposite Qxx which yields two tricks if LHO leads the suit.

 

Another consideration: Suppose you hold S-6 H-AQ10 D-7432 C-AQ1065. Partner opens 1S, the next hand bids 2S showing spades and a minor, and it's your call. Double dummy, partner rates to be the right side to play notrump. In practice, though, LHO doesn't know his partner's minor and will probably lead a heart. Better to bid 3NT than to play it from partner's side if he happens to hold the ♥Kx or Jxxx. Your RHO probably knows that diamonds are the best lead for their side.

 

Then you get into the dispute between hidden points versus hidden distribution. In matchpoints, a responder to 1NT with 6-1-5-1 might do well to hide his hand by declaring, as he's pretty likely to sneak past an ace with one of his singletons, especially after the other is known. I think this more than offsets the possibility of getting a lead into an AQ and throwing the other singleton.