"Enough is Enough" Balancing Part 2 by Marti Ronemus

We continue our adventures in balancing today. Just a quick review: When you are in the pass-out seat, you hold the power. A pass by you ends the auction. Such a responsibility! We're talking about battles for partscore, where the points are somewhat evenly divided around the table.

Your choices are: Pass. You know how we feel about that, but sometimes Pass is the best bid you can make. Next, you can overcall. This generally promises a five-card suit, and usually a Darn Good suit. Finally, we can Double. This generally shows shortness in the opponents' suit, four-ish cards in any unbid major, and tolerance for any suit. No doubletons!

Let's see how we do today.

Question 1

Your Hand
♠ J 8 4
♥ A Q 3
♦ K 8 3
♣ Q J 7 4

Q: 1 - South:

South	West	North	East
-	1♥	Pass	Pass
?

A: 1 No-trump: Remember we stole a King from Pard's hand, so we "really" have 16 pts. Equally important, we have 1-1/2 stoppers in Hearts. Pard will downgrade his hand by three points when it's his turn.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 2

Your Hand
♠ A J 9 2
♥ 9 2
♦ K 9 8 7
♣ Q 10 2

Q: 2 - South?

South	West	North	East
-	-	-	1♥
Pass	2♥	Pass	Pass
?

A: Double: By robbing Pard of 3 pts, we can barely scrape up a double. Pard will know from our initial Pass that we don't have what's required for a direct seat double. We're not very happy, but enough is enough.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 3

Your Hand
♠ A K J 10 8 2
♥ K 9
♦ A J 9
♣ 3 2

Q: 3 - South (this one is tricky):

South	West	North	East
-	1♥	Pass	Pass
?

A: Double: More advanced players would handle this differently, but with the tools you've got in your toolbox at present, our best choice is to Double and then bid Spades. With distribution we've got 18 pts. An overcall shows 7-17, and this is just too big. When we double and THEN bid our own suit, Pard knows we have a monster and will most likely keep bidding.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 4

Your Hand
♠ 4 3 2
♥ A J 10 6
♦ 2
♣ A K Q 9 2

Q: 4 - South:

South	West	North	East
-	1♠	Pass	Pass
?

A: 2♣: We've got a nice five-card suit for an overcall. We can't double because of our Diamond shortness, but an overcall is perfect. Notice that unlike last hand, we don't have quite enough to Double and then bid our own suit.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Question 5

Your Hand
♠ 4 3 2
♥ A J 10
♦ A 6 2
♣ Q 9 3 2

Q: 5 - South:

South	West	North	East
-	1♠	Pass	Pass
?

A: Double: Rats. We have the wrong shape to double because we're not short in Their suit. We can't overcall because we don't have a five-card suit. We can't bid No-trump because we don't have a stopper. Can we Pass? We could, but North has shown fewer than 6 pts. Pard is rated to have some points and we should do SOMETHING to protect them. We need to reopen the bidding with a double. I know, I know. Do it anyway. Pard might possibly have a Spade stack and might turn our reopening Double into a Penalty double. We just can't sell out at the 1-level.

So, after this frustration and scrambling, it's time for a nice hand.

Your result so far:

Open Question

Play this Hand

Now that you've bid five hands, let's see how your play goes.

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Overall Results

Your results: out of Average:

What next? You may enjoy playing our prepared hands series.
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