You
LHO Partner RHO
Pass 1D Pass 1S
None vulnerable at matchpoints, what’s your call holding ♠Q ♥K865 ♦K74 ♣Q9643 ?
Aggressive bidders tend to look for excuses to enter the auction. If you’re one of them, your first thought might be that this is a good opportunity to make a light takeout double or “sandwich” 1NT overcall. You’re not vulnerable, you have the right shape and you’re a passed hand, so partner won’t expect much more than 10 points.
We often rely on instinct and experience to make this type of bidding decision. If a call seems easy or obvious, it’s natural to trust our initial reaction, especially early in the auction. For tougher problems, we call on our logic and reasoning skills to analyze the situation and find a solution.
These two stages in the decision-making process are sometimes called System 1 (intuition) and System 2 (reasoning). If you make the first bid that pops into your head, you’ve stopped at System 1. It may well be the best choice, but if it isn’t, you need to move on to System 2 to figure out why and evaluate alternatives. The challenge is making a conscious effort to slow down, be objective and consider all the consequences of your decision.
If your instinct is to bid or double with the hand above, the first question to ask yourself is what you hope to accomplish. You could find a fit and a possible partscore, but since the opponents hold the master suits, they’ll probably find it easy to either outbid or double you. With half your high-card points in their suits, you really don’t want to encourage partner to compete too high. Light actions can have obstructive value, but here, neither of your choices uses up enough auction space to create much of a problem. Your interference could even help the opponents by allowing opener to use a support double or redouble to show a 3-card spade raise.
When weighing the pros and cons of your choice, consider how it will affect not just the rest of the auction, but also the play of the hand. This is especially important when you expect your attempt to declare will be futile, and it’s the strongest argument against bidding with this hand.
If you advertise your two-wo-suiter and end up on defense, it won’t help partner, even if he’s on opening lead (he surely would have led an unbid suit if you had passed). The only beneficiary will be declarer, who will have valuable clues about who has the spade shortness and the missing club and heart honors.
Think twice, think fast
Like many bidding problems, what appears to be a simple do-you-or-don’t-you decision actually offers a lot to think about. At the table, you need to do this in tempo if possible, without revealing that you have something “biddable”. If you think a long time and pass, you’ve given away almost as much information as if you had bid.
There will seldom be time to analyze every possibility, but you may need only a few seconds to test your System 1 impulse and predict possible outcomes. With experience, you’ll recognize similarities to problems you’ve solved in the past and you’ll be able to zero in on the most critical issues.
When you’re in the sandwich seat between two bidding opponents, the most practical and important question to answer is “Does this call rate to benefit us more than the opponents?” If the answer is no, your System 2 reasoning has given you a fast answer.
© 2016 Karen Walker