2007-12-31 02:52
Hand Evaluation - Bidding Systems
In his 1990 book, Seven Habits of
Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey described seven
"habits" that successful people follow to improve their individual skills and their interaction with others. As Bridge
players, we deal with the same two issues.
Our success depends on how we perform as
individuals and as partnerships,
and the best players excel in both
areas.
The main decisions we make as partnerships
concern our bidding system. All
experienced players have their own philosophies about what works and what
doesn't, but some basic principles apply to
all good systems. One habit that successful pairs have in common is:
1. They play a system that
emphasizes constructive bidding.
We all know players whose convention cards are filled with sub-minimum
opening bids, ultra-weak notrumps and 20 ways to preempt. If you load your
system with too many agreements for showing weak hands, your accuracy can suffer when you hold stronger hands. Those will be half the deals you play, so it's important
to find a middle ground between a system that's too stodgy and one that's too maniacal.
In the long run, the most effective
systems are those that emphasize
constructive bidding. Constructive doesn't mean conservative. It
means that when you're deciding on meanings for your system bids, agreements
that help you investigate games and slams should take precedence over those designed to find
sacrifices or disrupt the opponents' auction. Your main goal should be to enlighten partner, not confuse the opponents.
A good system will accommodate your preempting style without sacrificing your ability to
accurately describe your good hands. Problems can occur when you replace a
constructive bid with a new convention or assign a weaker meaning to it. If you
don't have a good alternative for showing the stronger hand, your preempting
agreements can interfere more with your
auctions than with the opponents'.
Some common problem areas include:
10-12 notrumps. Unless you play a strong club system, the 10-12 1NT opening
can do a lot of damage to your
other auctions. Since you have to open one of a suit with balanced hands of 13
to 19 points, you're left with an awkward range for your rebids. If you rebid
1NT with 13-16 and 2NT with 17-19, you'll often end up in contracts that are a
level higher or lower than the rest of the field is playing.
Some pairs play that the raise can be made with absolutely nothing --
0-5 or 6 points, with or without distributional values. This essentially turns
the raise into a shutout bid
because opener cannot safely bid on, even when he holds a monster.
"Nuisance" overcalls.
Super-light overcalls and takeout doubles create
similar problems because they widen
the point range for your actions. If you agree to make one-level
overcalls with garbage hands, partner will
never know whether you have four points or 14. That uncertainty may scare him
into passing when he should be competing, or even bidding game.
Which is more valuable? When in doubt about the best use for a bid,
choose the more constructive meaning
if partner has opened. You rate to win more IMPs and matchpoints for making good slam decisions than for preempting the
opponents out of games they may or may not make (or even want to bid).
How
does your partner react when you propose a
new addition to your bidding system? Some players have never met a
convention they didn’t like – or wouldn’t at least try. The slower adopters will
want to research the benefits and make the decision later (or never). Others may go into bargaining
mode (“I’ll play your pet convention if you’ll play mine”).
There’s
no shortage of new bidding theories and conventions to try, but if you aren’t
selective, your system can become a patchwork of
mismatched bidding toys. The most successful bidders use four
criteria to evaluate all system changes. The habit they share is:
2.
They choose bidding agreements based on value, frequency, simplicity and compatibility.
Value
The value of a new
agreement is best judged not by what the bid itself shows, but by where your auction ends. The purpose of any system
change should be to improve your ability to get to the optimal contract. A
convention has little value if it pinpoints a specific type of hand but doesn’t
help you bid to a contract you couldn’t have
found without it.
Almost all
conventions involve tradeoffs. One
important consideration is the amount of extra information your auction is
likely to give to the opponents.
Another is the potential value of alternate
meanings for a bid. Your decision to play a Flannery or Roman 2D
should come after you evaluate the effects of giving up the weak 2D opening. If
you add Lebensohl or the Good-Bad 2NT to your system, you won’t be able to make
a natural notrump call in some competitive auctions. With conventional doubles
– responsive, Rosenkranz, snapdragon – you lose the penalty double.
Frequency
When evaluating a
new convention or treatment, consider how often it’s likely to occur. The frequency of suitable hands isn’t always
a good indicator of a bid’s real value, but it may influence your decision. The
more often you can take advantage of a special meaning for a bid, the stronger
your justification for using it instead of an alternate meaning.
Simplicity
Your success with
complex or rarely used bidding agreements may depend on how much time you have to practice and work on
your system. However, even long-time, practiced partnerships recognize the
value of sometimes opting for simplicity
over science.
The danger of a
complicated convention isn’t just that you might forget it when it finally
comes up. It’s that keeping it in your system (and your head) can contribute to
a “brain drain” that affects your overall
energy and concentration.
If you include too
many memory-intensive agreements
in your system, your subconscious will always be working to keep the knowledge
available. Even a relatively simple auction may trigger a minor panic -- “Is
that one of the obscure agreements we discussed last year?” – and deplete the
brain cells you need for the rest of the
session.
Compatibility with
your system and style
No convention can
be evaluated in isolation. It has to be compatible
with other elements of your system, and you’ll often need to make
adjustments to handle the hands the agreement doesn’t cover.
The most important
point to remember is that bidding systems
don’t win events. Good judgment
does. No matter what system you’re playing, if you know it well,
make good basic decisions and
commit fewer errors than your opponents, you’ll probably win.
3. They have system notes.
4. They base bidding decisions on the principle
of “game before slam”.
There’s a fine line between “too rigid” and “too loose” when defining your conventions. The more
requirements you impose on a bid, the less often you’ll be able to use it, so
it’s important to find a balance between accuracy and frequency
© 2005 Karen Walker