Friday, April 21, 2006 1:43
AM
Hand Evaluation – Tactics (
The Art of Sacrificing )
PITBULLS:
Setting up a sacrifice starts with your decision right from the onset. Toys are used for setting up sacrifices
quite often. Partner is a passed hand & you are vul
vrs not . They open 1♠ , you are dealt ♠x
♥AK ♦xxxxx ♣Jxxxx so do you setup a sacrifice
with an unusual 2NT ? You know that the odds of them having a vul game are very good with a passed hand partner. Of
course you do not
, because of hand evaluation . Your
HCP’s are not located
in your two suits. You have two sure defensive tricks so partner only needs 1 ½
trick to beat their vul game. You do not want to
encourage partner to bid as you have the wrong
hand for that. You are only helping the opponents play the hand with a silly 2NT bid as they outgun you quite badly & the last
thing you want is a passed hand partner bidding at the 5 level
. Anyway you bid 2NT & partner sticks his nose in at the 3 level
& goes for -1100 holding 3 trump( ♣’s) & the ♦KQ !! Hand evaluation is a nice
skill to develop.
There is a nice negative inference when you setup a
sacrifice nv vrs vul but partner prefers to
defend their vul game. Partner must feel that she has
a decent chance to beat the contract. Susan Culham
held ♠AQ87x ♥Jxxxxx ♦xx ♣void & her vul LHO bid 1♣. Susan bid 2♣
& her RHO bid 2♦ . I crawled in 2♠ , Susans
RHO bid 2NT & Susan setup the sacrifice with a 3♠ bid . They bid 3NT
& I passed so around to Susan. Why isn’t &*^%^&* partner sacrificing ? He must have values in the minors &
expects to beat 3NT. Susan passes & leads a spade so 3NT is down 3 for
+300. This not the time to avoid leading a spade because you will not be giving
then their 9th trick when partner announces minor suit values by not taking the sacrifice.
The best way to
sacrifice is to determine how well the partnerships’ hands fit. If the
hands fit well, your defensive potential diminishes
so let’s go for the deliberate set. Perry Khakar bid
a hand well nv vrs vul
which shows this principle in action. ♠1098x
♥xx ♦K10987 ♣Jx
. Partner nv opens 2♠ , RHO vulnerable overcalls 3NT what is your bid ? You
can make the immediate sacrifice to 4♠ but the chances of
you playing it there on this vulnerability are virtually non-existent. Why not make the “show where
you live” bid ? This bid is designed to allow a joint decision to sacrifice at higher levels. Partner will
evaluate her hand based on her length & HCP’s in diamonds. Accordingly
Perry bid 4♦ , Kiz
Fung my partner bid 4♥. Partner’s hand is ♠QJ10987
♥xxxx ♦Axx ♣void so she shows a
diamond fit by backing in 4♠. This bid must show
a diamond fit or you could possibly be making a very silly single handed bid.
The opponents now bid 4NT so you have the green light to take your sacrifice.
What
if partner with the weak 2♠ did not have a
diamond fit ? She would pass 4♥ & partner should
pass 4NT as the hands are not conducive to a sacrifice. You tried for a
sacrifice so do not bid your hand twice. ♠KQJxxx
♥Kx ♦x ♣J10xx so 4NT gets beaten
up badly with the spade lead. Once Perry “set
up” the sacrifice with the 4♦ bid
, the other hand is “captain of the ship” for sacrificing purposes. Hand
evaluation with diamonds is the key . What
if partner had ♠QJ10xxx ♥QJx ♦x ♣Kxx ? If Perry made a
single handed sacrifice of 5♠ , the result is a
brutal 5 down doubled against 660 . -1100 & a very bad single handed
sacrifice gets what it deserved.
You are essentially bidding your hand twice
by sacrificing & over ruling partner.
The sacrifice should be made by the correct side ,
taking into consideration the 4♦ bid.
The
theme of this article is to setup sacrifices
– do not just sacrifice. A
pre-empt is not allowed to bid again unless partner
gives you the green light. In
these types of auctions where partner bids a new
suit ,
she has either a fit with you or one hell of a suit. The pre-empter can bid again
with a fit. If the pre-empter or overcaller
wants to force the issue , a D.S.I.P. double is used to ask permission
to sacrifice. The pre-empter is allowed to make an action double as a request to sacrifice ( D.S.I.P. ) . This shows a pre-empt
with unexpected defense and is
asking partners permission. Partner evaluates
her hand depending on fit , defensive
tricks and values in their trump suit. Undoubles of slams
work the same way. I am asking permission
to sacrifice so are we beating this slam or not ? Single handed bids resulting in pseudo sacrifices is horrible Bridge. Use every tool
possible to prevent them.
Kiz Fung had an ideal hand against Mike Passel to setup a sacrifice. We held the “boss suit”
spades which has a bearing on her decision to sacrifice. Kiz
vul against vul held ♠Axxxxx ♥x ♦Jx ♣K109x , Mike opened 1♥ . I bid 2♠
with the other hand & the client bid 3♥. The worse bid you
can make is 4♥ because partner already
knows the heart distribution from the bidding so that is no help is
setting up a sacrifice ( allows lets them Q bid
cheaply at the 4 level) . 4♠ might jam them up a
bit but the client has allowed you room to
bid 4♣. This bid shows your possible defense so partner is able to make
an informed decision. I held ♠KQJ109x ♥xx ♦x ♣ QJxx. Hearing the club bid , I
have destroyed her hand defensively
so I will not let them play 6♥ or even 7♥ . 6♠X only goes for 500
against their cold grand. Our
partners had a limit raise
misunderstanding so we could have won the board for them as they got to game instead of slam.
A word of caution though. Partner is allowed to operate when you pre-empt. You open 3♦ with ♠x ♥xxxx ♦KQJxxxx ♣x , they make a T/O double. Partner bids 3♥ & RHO bids 4♠ . Partner has given you a green light to bid but bid what ? Bid
4NT , giving partner a choice of sacrifices. Partner
will thank you as she holds ♠xxx ♥x ♦Axxx ♣A1098x & 5♦X is cold. A 5♥ bid was not welcome
by partner J
A Tormentee
nv vrs
vul setup a
sacrifice very well against Dora & I recently. He opened 1♦ & Dora
overcalled 1♠ which his partner doubled . I Q bid 2♦ so now he made the key bid of 3♣ which announces his two
suiter & since he did not double 2♦ ( which would show strength)
he is showing his intentions to
sacrifice. Dora bid 3♠ & I bid 4♠ so since Bridge is a
partnership game , he now allows partner to
make the decision to sacrifice. OOPS we forgot that part ,
as our Tormenttee now bids his hand again by bidding 5♣. This gets
doubled & goes a mere 5 down for +1100 & a cold zero. Partner’s hand
was not suitable for a sacrifice
as it was a flat defensive hand
with all her points in hearts. Pity !