Making Choices in the Bidding

A lot of bids come down to that intangible thing called judgment.  It is sometimes intriguing in a team match with players of reasonably equal skills to go back and look at the choice you each made.  I was sitting East and vulnerable against not I held this hand

QJ8

AQJ5 

J

KJ832

I admit I was a bit distracted and a bit groggy and Ray came in part way through intent on further distracting me.  He did also provide some interesting comments.

This was the auction when it got to me in fourth chair

Sylvia	North	Linda	South
			1
pass	1

Do you bid on my hand?  The only sensible call seems to be double since even I am not keen on bidding 2 with a modest hand and a modest suit at this vulnerability  The player holding my hand at the other table doubled.  This is what I thought. I do have 14 HCP (not counting the singleton J but a lot of them are hearts.  The K does figure to be onside true.  I am not crazy about doubling with my spades.  Maybe I will just wait and see what happens.  At my table South bid 1 and North jumped to 3.  All of this made me pretty happy about not bidding.  Finally South ended the auction with 5.  By this point Ray was jumping up and down and saying I should double.  He was right too.  But I wasn’t giving in to husband histrionics so I passed. 

This was the whole deal

	North void K932  A1086 Q10954
Sylvia 976542 107  Q952 7		Linda QJ8 AQJ5  J KJ832
	South AK103 864  K743 A6

Sylvia found a heart lead and we started off we four rounds of hearts.  Sylvia ruffing the fourth rounds as declarer through a club.  By the time it was all over we were +150 (Should have been +500, sorry Ray).

At the other table where my hand doubled,  South redoubled  and West (Sylvia’s hand) bit 1.  So far it wasn’t too bad.  Here is the entire auction.  I won’t comment on the remaining auction.

West	North	East	South
			1
pass	1	Dbl	Rdbl
1	2	2	pass
pass	3	DBL	3
3	pass	pass	DBL
all pass

 3 DBL might go down two after the opening club lead but at the table 1 down was worth 8 imps.  Was passing the better choice?  Or was it the rest of the auction at both tables?

Here Sylvia made a good bid, much better than her counterpart, in my opinion.

Sylvia

1062

A4 

654

J10854

We were not vulnerable against vulnerable and at both tables the auction started the same:

 

West	North	Linda	South
		1	DBL
pass	1	2	3

 

Sylvia made the big bid of 5.  Cora (my student) if you read this, it explains the point I have been trying to illustrate.  If you are going to save its usually right to make one big bid and make them guess.

Here was the North hand

North

K8754

10865 

KJ2

3

Should North double, bid or pass?  He has an extra spade, what looks like a heart fit but those diamonds don’t look all that good.  The original 1 bid didn’t promise anything and this is not a forcing pass.  North is under pressure and I can understand his choice of 5.  This was the whole deal

 

	North K8754 10865  KJ2 3
Sylvia 1062 A4  654 J10854		Linda void QJ2  A10983 KQ972
	South AQJ93 K973  Q7 A6

 

At the other table on the same start to the auction, Sylvia’s hand took a different view of his assets and passed.  Now North was able to bid 4.  My hand made the rather aggressive bid of 5.  South doubled and North passed.  Even if West had bid 4 North would have bid 4 and if either defender bid 5 they would likely have played there doubled.