Tuesday, June 08, 2004 4:26 AM

Hand Evaluation - Bidding Translation ( Skill )

PITBULLS:

Players who have played a long time can make a number of good defensive plays just based on instinct with good educated guesses. Probably over 50 % of the time they will be right . However, players who have the ability to translate bidding into “patterns “ will be right almost 100 % of the time ! You can never & I repeat never defend expertly without this skill. Good bidders make good defenders because they let a blueprint from the bidding guide them through the defense. They make it a habit to do this in all hands that the bidding allows them to do so. When expert defenders pause during the defense of a hand this “translation of bidding into patterns” is what they are doing.

Here are a few hands that happened recently that re-enforce this ability to translate the bidding in to hand patterns while defending a hand. Stan & Lisa Cabay had this auction

1♦-p-1♠-p

2♦-p-3♣-X

3♦-p-3♥-p

4♥-P-5♦-p

O.K. you lead a club & cash two clubs before Stan ruffs. The board is ♠AQxx ♥Qxx ♦Axx ♣xxx , Stan draws trump with you & your partner following to two rounds. You now have a partial count on Stan’s hand . You know he has 6 diamonds & two clubs . Does he have 4 hearts ? I doubt it as he bid diamonds 3 times before reluctantly raising partner to four hearts. Surely he would have bid 3♥ over the double with 4♥ rather than bidding 3♦ or passed to give partner a chance to bid hearts. Anyway he is probably 2-3-6-2 & Stan starts running trump to execute either a real squeeze or the dreaded pseudo squeeze. He does not have 11 tricks or he would have claimed his contract. Anyway knowing declarers pattern is the best defense against pseudo or real squeezes. Your hand is ♠Kxxx ♥xxxx ♦xx ♣Kxx so since you “know” that Stan has two spades therefore under no circumstances can you let a spade go. If you do , Stan will finesse the spade & now that spades are 3-3 the 4^th spade on the board will be the 11 th trick. You must play partner for a heart trick like QJx . You hold on to your spades . Stan hooks the spades but when your spade King does not drop Stan concedes one down. Simple when you translate the bidding into a pattern. You are just blindly guessing otherwise.

Translating bidding into patterns does not just apply to declarers hand but it applies to partner as well. With this skill my partner & I had 1NTX for 800 the other night. By not thinking in patterns you can end up with –380 (just a 20 IMP swing !) You hold ♠10x ♥Q1098 ♦Q8xx ♣AJx , the auction goes 1♥ by your opponent & a vul spade overcall by a disciplined partner with a vul 1NT by a non disciplined overbidder. With your local knowledge of how your opponent usually bids , you double 1NT so that is the final contract. You lead the spade 10 & the dummy comes down ♠Jx ♥AKxxx ♦AJx ♣xxx & declarer plays the jack , partner the queen & declarer the King. Declarer leads a small diamond inserts the jack & partner wins the K . Partner switches to the heart 8 , declarer puts up the J so you cover with the queen which declarer ducks. Now what ? Partner does not overcall vul with ♠Qxxxx of spades so he probably has 5 spades to the ♠AQxxx . He has two hearts with the doubleton heart switch and giving declarer 4 diamonds for attacking diamonds the diamonds are 4-4-3-2 . Therefore partners hand tentatively counts out to 5-2-2-4 . Partner has 4 clubs and since he did not switch to them Kxxx would be a good bet . Well this looks like dummy lock time as declarer has no entry to his hand. You lead a spade back , partner wins the spade Ace & returns the deuce of clubs. Declare has Q10x as expected so you win your jack, cash Ace and return the club. On the 4^th club the board is squeezed . If declarer lets a diamond go , partner will come back a diamond so your queen is established before the heart . If declarer lets a heart go , your partner leads the diamond 9 back & again you get a diamond trick before your heart is knocked out. Declarer loses 4 clubs , 2 hearts , 1 spade and 2 diamonds for +800 your way. If you do not count out hands & just guess you can end up with -380 !!

For experts not to count out hands it’s a cardinal sin. If you do not count out hands on defense , you are not an expert defender. It’s just that simple. Expert defenders also count declarer’s tricks & HCP’s for the entire defensive package. Weak declarers let you get away with sloppy defense but good declarers at the level of a Stan Cabay or Osama make you pay .