BridgeSnaps - September 2007

September 2007

RUBBER VS DUPLICATE

You are playing duplicate. Your hand sitting North, not vulnerable, is:

S) Q932 H) 942 D) J10 C) A985

Partner opens 1 club. While not exciting, your hand requires a response so you answer 1 spade. So far so good but now East overcalls 2 diamonds and partner passes. To this point the bidding is:

SOUTH      WEST     YOU      EAST
   1C               P          1S          2D
    P                P          ??

And so the question you have been waiting for is what next? You have just seven high card points. You have shown your minimum values already, so do you pass or perhaps raise partner’s clubs. Remember you are playing duplicate.

Of course you raise to 3 clubs.

As it turns out, 3 clubs usually goes down one for -50, while East-West is able to make just two diamonds for a score of 90, or -90 to your side. The difference is almost insignificant in a rubber bridge game, but in duplicate it can mean the difference between sharing a top board if you bid and play 3 clubs or a bottom result if the opponents are allowed to play 2 diamonds. Sometimes you push the opposition up one level too high and you get the only plus score on the board.

SHORT CLUB OPENINGS

“I have seen people bid 1C on weak hands with very short holdings in clubs; and I have seen their partners respond 1D to show weakness without any clear idea of what was meant by either the opening bid or the response. They suffer from the delusion that their bidding makes sense of some kind. This is a harmless fancy, and I encourage it warmly among people who play rubber bridge against me for high stakes.”

“Rule 6: never, never, never bid 1C with fewer than 3 clubs!!!. Rule 7: Same as rule 6 in case you didn’t hear it the first time.”

“If you have bid a really short club suit (singleton or doubleton) don’t ask me to tell you what to do. You don’t need a bridge teacher.. You don’t even need a psychiatrist. Drowning might help.”

- Alfred Scheinwold, 1978

BridgeSnaps newsletter is produced by John S. Thomas, author of Standard American 21.