“More points are lost at the contract bridge table through bad or pointless overcalls than any other way.”
Those are the words of Helen Sobel, a former chorus girl who won 35 national championships and was considered by many to be the best player in the world in the 1940s and 50s. Her view is surprising given her actual bidding style, which was so aggressive that she intimidated some of her male partners. Edgar Kaplan quipped, “These guys felt like they were playing in the Mixed Pairs and they were the girl.”
It’s been more than 65 years since Sobel offered this warning in her book All the Tricks, but it’s still good advice. Then and now, safety is a concern when choosing your action after an opponent opens. Even at the one-level, this decision involves thinking ahead and evaluating all the factors that affect your hand’s trick-taking potential – length and quality of your suit, your holding in the opponent’s suit, the positional value of your honors.
The safest overcalls are those where you have enough strength that you expect a plus score if you declare. That’s not the only reason to compete, though, and being light on high-card points doesn’t necessarily make an overcall “bad”.
After a 1C opening on your right, for example, many would consider ♠AQJ73 ♥652 ♦84 ♣964 too weak for an overcall. Sobel, however, recommends bidding 1S, not so much because you believe you’ll buy the contract, but because it can serve two other purposes: It uses up the opponents’ bidding space and it gets partner off to a spade lead if your LHO declares.
Compare that to ♠Q3 ♥Q82 ♦A9654 ♣Q64 . After 1C by RHO, a 1D overcall isn’t an egregious error, but what does it accomplish? If partner can raise, your hand has so little playing strength that you aren’t eager to play a 2D contract (or higher). If your LHO declares, you don’t particularly want a diamond lead.
A 1D overcall doesn’t even have value as a nuisance bid. It doesn’t use up enough auction space to impede the opponents’ ability to describe their hands, and it could backfire. Your bid gives LHO the opportunity to make a negative double, which will make RHO declarer and put you on lead.
The differences between these two hands underscore the most important concept in Sobel’s advice. The critical word is “pointless”. Whether you have a good suit or a good hand or both, it will be a bad overcall if you have no realistic expectation that bidding will lead to a better result than passing.
These injudicious overcalls won’t always be penalized in the auction, but they can be costly during the play. That happens frequently to those who follow the old -- and ill-advised -- “5 and 10” guideline, which states that a direct 2-level overcall can be made with just about any 5-card suit and any 10+ points. After 1S by RHO, they would bid 2H at any vulnerability with ♠J54 ♥KQ763 ♦A82 ♣Q4 .
This is a classic “no good can come of this” overcall. The most immediate danger is that the opponents may double 2H, and with a suit this weak, you could suffer a huge penalty. That risk isn’t justified by any other possible benefits. If the opponents have a spade fit, your overcall won’t keep them from finding it nor help partner defend, since you’ll be on lead.
The real damage may come later, after the opponents reach their final contract, because your overcall tells declarer where the missing high-card points are likely to be located.
The ability to analyze issues that may arise
during the play can help you make good decisions about your best final contract.
The same thinking process is also valuable when you expect to be defending. If
it’s likely that the opponents will declare – and if the bid you’re considering
rates to help them more than your partner in the play – it may well be one of
those overcalls that Sobel would call pointless and point-costing.
© 2015 Karen Walker