Bridge Questions

[woodych]

I have two questions on bridge and would be grateful for any replies.

 

Doubling: If my partner doubles our opponents opening bid (whether that is 1,2 or 3)and the 3rd seat does not respond to my partners double, am I oblidged to respond myself whatever my hand is like?

I only ask because I have been asked by many past players I should respond to my partners double whatever I have and especially if the 3rd seat passes.

However, this has often left us with a bad contract which we can never make and I feel bad as I responded with a poor hand but felt I was required to respond to my partners double.

 

Keeping hold of aces:

 

Time and time again I see players keeping hold of aces when the opponents are in a 4+ contract and ultimately never getting to use them because of distribution.

 

I appreciate aces are useful to get the lead back, but if one is defending a 4+ contract I always believed it was better to get those ace tricks while you can.

Any advise is very much appreciated.

 

Thank you, from a very average player:)

[woodych]

PS: I wasn't meaning it was wrong to keep aces, just needed to know what majority view was on this.

[Hanoi5]

I always tell my students a take-out double by partner is forcing unless passing leads to a better result. So if your partner doubles at the 3 level and you have a couple of tricks, and no game (or even part-score) seems feasible, then passing could be correct. If you have too many values in their suit and NT (especially 3) doesn't look good, so they are probably going down in the douled contract, then passing could be right. If you expect they're going down any way or you're going down if you play and they're going to score more points if you bid than if you pass, then passing cpuld be right (this one is the hardest to evaluate, I think).

 

About holding up with aces: no technique or play can be summed up in a simple advice. You cannot apply 'second hand low' all the time, for example. Each case has to be decided on its own and holding up aces in 4+ contracts mught work out not only as a way to keep control or communications but also as a means of making declarer misguess or severing communications with dummy, etc. It's a good idea to read books on defense so you can learn when and why you should hold aces (and quite some other plays).

[Vampyr]

You can always convert partner's takeout double to penalties, but at the one-level I believe that you should have a good six-card holding in their suit, or a very good 5-card holding with something like an A or KQ outside. And normally no 4+ cards in the suit that partner is primarily interested in ie the other major.

 

As for when to play an Ace on defense, this is an impossible question to answer on other than a case-by-case basis. And don't forget that sometimes it is beneficial to go to bed with an Ace, eg when playing it would have allowed an entry to dummy or otherwise set up tricks for declarer.

 

EDIT: crossed above post; I didn't get into the risk/reward aspect of passing a takeout double because I thought it might be TMI, but of course optimising the score is the real and only reason for passing.

 

Mods, could you move this thread as it is not about BBO?

[woodych]

Thank you both for great replies.

 

Wow, I really didn't realise how complicated bridge was until i saw those replies..lol

 

I can see yes each hand on its own merits. wow this game is tuff:(

 

Back to the drawing board for me.

 

Thank you again:)

[woodych]

PS sorry for getting wrong forum.

[Vampyr]

PS sorry for getting wrong forum.

 

It's nothing to apologise for. The main reason for moving it is that people who only check certain forums might miss it when they would have had something helpful to add.

[woodych]

Very true, and i have a lot of reading to do on defending.

Thank you

[helene_t]

As for passing partner's double:

 

Suppose partner doubles their 1♦ opening and you hold

♠432

♥432

♦5432

♣432

Passing 1♦ is very likely to lead to a bad result. You have zero defensive tricks so if partner has three or four tricks (which would be quite typical for a minimum opening hand with shortness in diamonds), they will make two or three doubled overtricks. That is very expensive.

 

So you bid 1♥. More often than not, partner has four hearts for you. Even if he has only three, they may not double you. And a few undoubled undertricks are less expensive than letting them play 1♦ doubled.

 

So when you pass partner's double it doesn't mean that you have nothing to bid. It means that you are happy to defend their doubled contract.

 

When should you be happy to defend? Use the law of total tricks as a guideline. It says (somewhat oversimplified) that we should only defend if their number of trumps is smaller than the number of tricks they are contracting for.

 

Now imagine that partner has one trump. That is his most common length. So:

He doubles a 1-level contract. They are contracting for 7 tricks. So we want to defend if they have at most 6 trumps. I.e. we have at least 7. Partner has one trump. So if you have six trumps, pass. With less than 6, bid something.

 

Similarly you can calculate that in order to pass partner's double, you need

5 trumps at the 2-level

4 trumps at the 3-level

3 trumps at the 4-level

 

It is different if partner doubles a notrump contract, of if he doubles a conventional bid, or if he doubles a bid in some convoluted auction. But if partner doubles an opening suit bid or a raise of a suit opening, then this crude rule gives you a reasonable guideline.

[woodych]

Thank you Helene

Never thought i could bid with so few points on a double, i have a lot to learn even after all these years, i shall be 90 before i "really get it" !!

But i see what you mean now:)

Peter

[Trinidad]

Never thought i could bid with so few points on a double, i have a lot to learn even after all these years, i shall be 90 before i "really get it" !!

Hi Peter,

 

It is not just that you can bid with few points when partner doubles. You have to bid when partner doubles, even with no points.

 

The consequence of having to bid, even with a really bad hand, is that if you do have a good hand, simply bidding something won't do the trick. You need to tell partner that you have a good hand by jumping or by simply bidding game. (Remember that partner's double promised that he has support for the unbid suits.)

 

As to "really getting it" by the time you are 90: Bridge is such a complicated (but very nice) game that I am sure that I won't get it before I am that old. But that doesn't stop me from playing ... and learning. And neither should it stop you.

 

Rik

[Trinidad]

About taking aces or not.

 

This is a very difficult subject that will take years to master (and even then you will go wrong from time to time).

 

There are two things that are very important in deciding to take an ace or not.

 

1. What is the correct play if you can see all the cards?

After you have played a set of hands, you can go through the hands and see how you played. Should you have taken the ace or would that have helped declarer? From that you can learn a few things.

 

Suppose the suit is like this:

 

       KJx

Axxx           Q

       T9xxx

 

Declarer (South) leads a small card towards the KJx in dummy. If you go up with the ace, it will be the only trick you will get in the suit. If you play a small card, declarer might decide to play the jack and your side will get two tricks.

 

2. Figuring out what everybody has.

After a while, you may be able to see when you should take your ace and not when you see all the cards. That is nice, but unless your opponents show you their cards, you don't have that information. So, one of the great challenges in bridge is to figure out what the other hands look like.

 

This is difficult, but there are a few things that you can do.

 

a. You and your partner can help each other out by signalling

Partner can tell you (and you can tell your partner) whether you like the suit that you led by playing a low or a high spot card to the trick. When declarer (or dummy) leads to a trick, your spot card can tell whether you have an even or odd number of cards in the suit. This helps in figuring out how many cards declarer has.

 

b. Listen to the bidding

If declarer has bid spades, hearts, and diamonds, then he is not going to have a lot of clubs. You need to paint a picture of declarer's hand. You can use that information to paint a picture of partner's hand. AFter all, you know your own hand and dummy and you have a picture of declarer's hand. Each suit has 13 cards, so partner needs to have the remaining cards. A few signals from partner will help to coplete the picture, and this makes the picture you have of declarer's hand more accurate.

 

c. Keep track of declarer's tricks

If grabbing an ace gets the contract down, it is usually a good idea to take it. But if you need more tricks than just your ace to get a good result, it can be good to be patient.

 

So, you need to count, count, and count: How many tricks does declarer have, how many spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs does he have and how many HCPs does he have? This counting is the essence of bridge. In the beginning it seems like it is absolutely impossible to do all this counting. But if you try, after a few headacehes, you will see that you get better and better at it. They say that good players can see through the back of the cards. They do that by counting.

 

I wish you good luck in trying.

 

Rik

[Stephen Tu]

It is not just that you can bid with few points when partner doubles. You have to bid when partner doubles, even with no points.

 

It's more like you "should usually bid" even with no points, because if you pass the opponents get to play their contract doubled, which tends to make, and be expensive for your side, especially if it's 2h+ partial and you would be doubling them into game. Also doubled overtricks add up pretty quickly even if they haven't been doubled into game. The times to be more apt to pass partner's takeout double without a trump stack is when he has made a takeout double of opp's 4M opening, where with a balanced weak hand you don't fancy your chances in 5m and partner rates to have enough stuff to nip their contract one or two, and even if he doesn't they were in game already anyway so the loss isn't quite as huge.

 

But with length in the opponents suit, and no 4 cd outside suit to bid, passing can be considered even if you don't expect a set, particularly if you haven't doubled the opps into game. It's an estimate thing of how much/how often you think they are making and how badly you expect to go down in your contract, and how likely you are to be doubled in your contract.

 

Generally you should be very happy to have a 4 cd suit to take out to, even with zero HCP. And really happy if you are still at 1 level. Partner should be aware you are semi-forced to bid and may not have a lot, although typically he will play you for a little something not completely broke. The good thing is even if you go down, in many cases the opponents were making, so your bid works as a sacrifice against their bid. The ugly cases are when partner of opening bidder has a redouble or comes back in with a penalty double.

[zasanya]

http://www.bridgedoctor.com/lessons/17-online-bridge-lessons.htm

You may benefit by reading this article

[Zelandakh]

You should generally consider passing partner's low level takeout double as a positive action in the same way as a jump response would be. Do it with a good hand and a good trump suit. With 0hcp, it is usually better to bid even a 3 card suit if you have to. At higher levels it is sometimes the lesser of evils to pass with a weaker hand but those cases are less common and perhaps better left to one side for the time being.

 

Another point you might consider is when you are the doubler and partner passes. Traditionally, if you double a 1 of a suit opening and everyone passes, your normal lead is a trump. Some older books suggest that if you are the passer and partner does not lead a trump, you should assume they hold a void in the trump suit.

[woodych]

Hi Peter,

 

It is not just that you can bid with few points when partner doubles. You have to bid when partner doubles, even with no points.

 

The consequence of having to bid, even with a really bad hand, is that if you do have a good hand, simply bidding something won't do the trick. You need to tell partner that you have a good hand by jumping or by simply bidding game. (Remember that partner's double promised that he has support for the unbid suits.)

 

As to "really getting it" by the time you are 90: Bridge is such a complicated (but very nice) game that I am sure that I won't get it before I am that old. But that doesn't stop me from playing ... and learning. And neither should it stop you.

 

Rik

 

Thank you Rik

 

I get it, bad hand still bid, good hand jump or game

 

Yes i keep trying and will always do so because as you say it is a good game:)

[woodych]

About taking aces or not.

 

This is a very difficult subject that will take years to master (and even then you will go wrong from time to time).

 

There are two things that are very important in deciding to take an ace or not.

 

1. What is the correct play if you can see all the cards?

After you have played a set of hands, you can go through the hands and see how you played. Should you have taken the ace or would that have helped declarer? From that you can learn a few things.

 

Suppose the suit is like this:

 

       KJx

Axxx           Q

       T9xxx

 

Declarer (South) leads a small card towards the KJx in dummy. If you go up with the ace, it will be the only trick you will get in the suit. If you play a small card, declarer might decide to play the jack and your side will get two tricks.

 

2. Figuring out what everybody has.

After a while, you may be able to see when you should take your ace and not when you see all the cards. That is nice, but unless your opponents show you their cards, you don't have that information. So, one of the great challenges in bridge is to figure out what the other hands look like.

 

This is difficult, but there are a few things that you can do.

 

a. You and your partner can help each other out by signalling

Partner can tell you (and you can tell your partner) whether you like the suit that you led by playing a low or a high spot card to the trick. When declarer (or dummy) leads to a trick, your spot card can tell whether you have an even or odd number of cards in the suit. This helps in figuring out how many cards declarer has.

 

b. Listen to the bidding

If declarer has bid spades, hearts, and diamonds, then he is not going to have a lot of clubs. You need to paint a picture of declarer's hand. You can use that information to paint a picture of partner's hand. AFter all, you know your own hand and dummy and you have a picture of declarer's hand. Each suit has 13 cards, so partner needs to have the remaining cards. A few signals from partner will help to coplete the picture, and this makes the picture you have of declarer's hand more accurate.

 

c. Keep track of declarer's tricks

If grabbing an ace gets the contract down, it is usually a good idea to take it. But if you need more tricks than just your ace to get a good result, it can be good to be patient.

 

So, you need to count, count, and count: How many tricks does declarer have, how many spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs does he have and how many HCPs does he have? This counting is the essence of bridge. In the beginning it seems like it is absolutely impossible to do all this counting. But if you try, after a few headacehes, you will see that you get better and better at it. They say that good players can see through the back of the cards. They do that by counting.

 

I wish you good luck in trying.

 

Rik

 

Thank you that all makes sense. I do try to work out where cards are as you suggest.

 

I guess playing a lot of games will help with that as experience gives rise to better understanding

 

Great explanations, that you very much:)

[woodych]

You should generally consider passing partner's low level takeout double as a positive action in the same way as a jump response would be. Do it with a good hand and a good trump suit. With 0hcp, it is usually better to bid even a 3 card suit if you have to. At higher levels it is sometimes the lesser of evils to pass with a weaker hand but those cases are less common and perhaps better left to one side for the time being.

 

Another point you might consider is when you are the doubler and partner passes. Traditionally, if you double a 1 of a suit opening and everyone passes, your normal lead is a trump. Some older books suggest that if you are the passer and partner does not lead a trump, you should assume they hold a void in the trump suit.

 

Thank you for that:)

[woodych]

It's more like you "should usually bid" even with no points, because if you pass the opponents get to play their contract doubled, which tends to make, and be expensive for your side, especially if it's 2h+ partial and you would be doubling them into game. Also doubled overtricks add up pretty quickly even if they haven't been doubled into game. The times to be more apt to pass partner's takeout double without a trump stack is when he has made a takeout double of opp's 4M opening, where with a balanced weak hand you don't fancy your chances in 5m and partner rates to have enough stuff to nip their contract one or two, and even if he doesn't they were in game already anyway so the loss isn't quite as huge.

 

But with length in the opponents suit, and no 4 cd outside suit to bid, passing can be considered even if you don't expect a set, particularly if you haven't doubled the opps into game. It's an estimate thing of how much/how often you think they are making and how badly you expect to go down in your contract, and how likely you are to be doubled in your contract.

 

Generally you should be very happy to have a 4 cd suit to take out to, even with zero HCP. And really happy if you are still at 1 level. Partner should be aware you are semi-forced to bid and may not have a lot, although typically he will play you for a little something not completely broke. The good thing is even if you go down, in many cases the opponents were making, so your bid works as a sacrifice against their bid. The ugly cases are when partner of opening bidder has a redouble or comes back in with a penalty double.

 

Thank you for that, appreciated:)

[woodych]

http://www.bridgedoctor.com/lessons/17-online-bridge-lessons.htm

You may benefit by reading this article

 

Thank you for that:)

[woodych]

I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time out to reply to my questions, it is very much appreciated and I don't feel so silly asking them after all.

You have shown how complicated the game really is and that even at my tender age of 54 I have plenty of years learning still to do.

 

I recall I first played bridge in my early teens. I enjoyed it then, but of course then other past times took over and we can guess what they probably were....

 

It is only in the last 2-3 years I have started playing again and enjoy it very much.

 

Some times it can get very competative and I do feel bad about any partner I am with at the time when I make mistakes, but I realise we all make them however good we are, and that we make those and hopefully learn from them.

 

Thanks again:)

[Stephen Tu]

I get it, bad hand still bid, good hand jump or game

 

Good hands also have the option of cue bidding the suit partner doubled when unsure of which game to bid and to create a forcing auction at a lower than game level.

 

BTW it's not a great idea to quote entire posts just to thank people for making them. It creates this massive wall of text that makes the thread hard to read and doesn't add anything to the discussion. If you want follow up, excerpt just part of the post and ask a follow up question.

 

Just do it like your last post, a single posting thanking everyone without quoting everyone's entire post.

[woodych]

I have taken the advice provided by players in this thread and I have since always responded to my partners double, especially where no bid from ops came after the double, however bad my hand might seem to me.

It certainly has been proved to be the correct thing to do.

 

Today I doubled a 1NT openner from ops as i had 18 facecard points.

No bid came from the other op and my partner passed too.

 

I admit my partner had zero face card points but he did have 5 spades.

 

As it turned out we lost big time. Op should have been in a much higher bid but of course I had no chance to make that happen.

 

The most frustrating thing about the hand was not that my partner passed but that he later sent me a private message after the tournament to say what a beginner I was and how he had added my name to his blacklist?

 

Was I wrong to double the ops 1nt openner?

 

I feel he should have replied with 2s at least to push ops above the 1nt doubled?

 

Thank you

[1eyedjack]

I would add that player to your blacklist.

 

It is normal to double 1NT with 18 points.

 

Although primarily for penalties, it is normal to remove said double if you have a very weak hand opposite AND you have somewhere to run.

 

It is likely that your general inexperience was apparent to an experienced partner over the course of the tourney, and I would not count your double of 1N as a likely contributory factor. Indeed if the hand contributed at all it may be because there may have been some slippage in the defensive play.

 

But none of that justifies discourtesy.

 

Your partner is absolutely entitled, if so inclined, to blacklist every beginner that he partners, or for that matter any player whose username begins in the range L to Z, but it does him no credit and I think it behoves him to keep it to himself.

 

Sad to say, this is not the last time that you will get someone passing such comments to you. Etiquette online is nothing like the standard that you would get face to face. Just have to let it wash over you.

[woodych]

Thank you 1eyedjack.

He was only a partner for one hand being the free automated tournaments, but perhaps he has seen me play in others.

But as you say no need for those messages and as you also say there will I am sure be others as there have been before this one, some not printable which I have passed onto abuse@bbo.

My average match points is around 45% which I didn't think was that bad but I guess some players hate playing with anyone below an intermediate but at least I do not hold myself out to be an expert, just someone trying to learn the game.

I will indeed let is wash over me:)