How would your partnership bid these hands? White vs. red at IMPs. West deals and passes and both opponents pass throughout.
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North ♠ AKQ75 ♥ K5 ♦ J654 ♣ A10 |
South ♠ Void ♥ AQ94 ♦ KQ873 ♣ KQ63 |
Most pairs would find their way to 6D or 6NT with few problems. When this hand was played in the finals of the 2011 Vanderbilt teams, however, it was the most talked-about hand of the event. At both tables, the expert North-South pairs bid up to 7D missing the trump ace.
Even the most experienced partnerships get to ridiculous contracts. When it happens, how you handle it may determine whether the result is just one bad board or several. If you react emotionally, more damage can come later when you’re too distracted to play your best.
After the hand: Some pairs have a firm agreement that they won’t discuss anything related to the bidding or play until after the session. This can be a successful strategy, but it’s important to know your partner’s personality. Unless you’ve agreed in advance to this “rule”, some partners may interpret your silence as blame. If it was your mistake or a misunderstanding, a quick “sorry” or “we’ll sort it out later” can break the tension.
A few words may also help partner refocus after he makes what is clearly a solo error. “Forget it”, said with a smile, often works (“Why did you … ?” doesn’t). Be careful, though, not to patronize. “Is there anything I could have done to help you?” may just intensify his annoyance with himself (and possibly you). “I would have made the same bid with your hand” is reassuring only if you really mean it.
The rest of the session: The hands immediately after a disaster can be critical in regaining your concentration and momentum. This is not the time to be creative or shoot for tops. If you have the choice between a straightforward bid and a brilliant one, go with the former, especially if you suspect that partner is frustrated or distracted.
After the game: There’s no point in rehashing obvious blunders, but regular partnerships should discuss bad results caused by misunderstandings or system flaws. Differences in judgment are also worth exploring. You don’t have to agree on exactly how to evaluate a hand or plan an auction, but sharing your reasoning will give you insight into how each other thinks.
An interesting example of this type of discussion is in the emails exchanged by one of the pairs who bid 7D with the Vanderbilt hand. Bobby Levin and Steve Weinstein published their post-mortem conversation on bridgewinners.com (search: Levin Weinstein emails).
The problems in their auction centered on their choice of control bids and uncertainty about which bids would ask for keycards. Along with some good-natured ribbing, their emails include explanations of their thought process at each point in the nine-bid auction – how they interpreted partner’s bids, alternatives they considered, assumptions about which of their existing agreements applied.
In the emails, you can see that their focus during the auction was on “How will partner read this bid?”. Afterwards, it was on “What should this bid mean?”
Their dialogue demonstrates a
constructive way to deal with bidding disasters and avoid repeating them. Also
evident are the respect, open-mindedness and sense of humor that create a
successful partnership – as well as the generosity of two world-class players in
sharing the details of one of their rare missteps.
© 2017 Karen Walker