Weekly Hand Analysis - Mark Olsky - October 16, 2023 - Bid

 

Question:  You advocate for being aggressive while bidding.  For this board, most everyone bid 2 Hearts and made it.   The one bid of 4  hearts went down 1.  Is there ever a time in bridge when you can be too aggressive?

Mark:

 I do advocate for bidding aggressively, but what I mean by that is that, when choosing between two reasonable alternatives, I prefer  the more enterprising. 

In this case, North had a choice between passing 3 hearts or bidding 4. I think it's perfectly reasonable to bid 4. 

However, South's bid of 3 hearts was aggressive beyond the bounds of reasonableness for 2 reasons. First, there are only 3 hearts and partner hadn't promised more than 4 little ones with that first heart bid. Moreover, there are only 15 high card points, when a 3 heart raise shows 17 to 19, maybe a really great 16 with extra distribution AND 4 hearts. The normal opening bid for South in this case is 1NT, assuming a 15 to 17 range. From that point on, holding a minimum for the opening 1 NT, South would decline most invitations that ask whether the opening was minimum or maximum. 

One invitation I would definitely accept with the South hand after opening 1NT is if N transferred to 2 hearts, then raised 2 hearts to 3, showing a 6 card (!) suit and about 8 high card points. If South had opened 1NT, North had an opportunity for an aggressive action which was apparently not chosen at the other tables. That would be to bid 2 clubs Stayman, assuming N-S don't play "garbage Stayman" which is aptly named. The standard for 2 clubs normally promises at least 8 points or, with a very aggressive but reasonable stretch, the present 7 point hand.  South would respond 2 diamonds (no 4 card major) and N would bid 2 hearts, showing the aforementioned 8 or 9 points and, by inference, 4 spades and 5 hearts. South should probably pass 2 hearts, but, if feeling super aggressive, could invite, bidding 3 hearts with a minimum but very nice hearts and now with the knowledge that N has 5 of them. N is sub- minimum for the bidding so far and passes the invitation. So, by bidding aggressively but not beyond at both ends of N-S, the final contract is 3 hearts played by North. That's one higher than other tables, but with a fair chance of success. 

Normally, you'd like the contract to be played by the stronger hand, but this time luck favors the aggressive bidding. It's often a mistake to lead a singleton trump, and East is pretty likely to lead the K of spades. When that holds, E has one final chance to hold N-S to 9 tricks, that requires E to shift to the heart at trick 2. From that point on, with careful and fairly difficult defense to find, Only 9 tricks will be made. W has to rise with the Ace when S leads a second round of spades and lead another heart. Any other defense that starts with a high spade lead from E, and declarer can make 4 hearts and E-W are helpless. It does require excellent play, bordering on expert, but sometimes you learn to play like that when you bid like that. 

If E starts with a high spade and next plays the other high spade, or any card but the heart, and the hand becomes cold for 4 hearts. Declarer must not play any hearts, but play for a cross- ruff. You'll note that bidding 3 hearts making 3 is a top board when all the other N-S pairs were held to 8 tricks. Bidding aggressively without going wild doesn't always pay off, but it does more often than not and it should have done this time. I'm willing to bet that E-W didn't find the very difficult defense to defeat 4 hearts, and declarer had a chance for the brilliant play to make it.