Bidding quiz...

[rakbeater]

Well done Mary....you found my mistake! I edited my post and corrected my meld counts. You are correct. If you take the bid, there is only 10 meld, and if you don't take the bid there is only 8 meld. The principle remains the same but my details were incorrect.

Meld breakdown:

= 4 meld

= 2 meld

= 2 meld; 4 meld if taking the bid and naming hearts as trump

So there is only a total of 8 or 10 meld in this hand.

(10-30-2012, 10:13 PM)rakbeater Wrote:  2. If I take the bid I will need help to save because I can't take 8/9 tricks on my own and I only have 10 meld.

To break this down:

If you take/win 8 tricks (with last trick +2) or 9 tricks you will have taken 20 points (which are required to save your meld in the playing phase of the hand). So since I can't do that on my own with this hand as the bidder, I would need help. I would need my partner to have the type of hand that can take multiple tricks, and that is never a given. So that is a gamble. The reason I added and pointed out that I only have 10 meld is because if I get the bid at 50, even if we could collect the required 20 points to save, if my partner has no meld, we would not make the bid. If that doesn't make sense I can break it down further. Please let me know.

[ToreadorElder]

It may take some hunting through the threads...as the forum gets more populated, finding key threads gets trickier, inevitably...but there are several threads dedicated to trick counting.

The posted hand commonly has 7 trump tricks; it's not very likely anyone else has 6 trump. (If no one has more than 5 trumps, your trumps 6-9 are all tricks.) If trumps break 4-4-3, then playing AAAJ gives you 8 tricks. But I'd count 7; I'd prefer to start with a LOW trump, which may well lose to a 10, but guards against bad breaks.

This hand needs help in any case. 10 meld, in hearts, and, say, 9 tricks...optimistic but possible. (8 trump tricks, plus 1 club trick down the line.) At 2.5 per...rak overcomplicates with last trick issues...your hand, in total is worth about 33 points. Well, you bid 50...so partner MUST contribute 17 or you're set. For that matter, partner MUST give you 10 meld or you don't get on the board. (Yes, I assume the min-20 rules.)

rak's being way too conservative; you will, MOST of the time, pull 20 during the play. Partner WILL provide a few tricks MOST of the time, especially when your hand is this weak in terms of aces. That's not an issue to me. There IS a significant risk partner won't have 10 meld (I'd estimate this happens 1/4 to 1/3 of the time) and/or won't give you enough to make your bid.

He is right that it's just about useless as dummy or on defense; I wouldn't even expect to win 2 tricks. 1 is fairly likely but isn't certain by any means. And I'm below average on meld, too. I'll probably give him 10 points total...that's 5 below 'expectation.' (If your partner passes, expect him to give you about 15 points total. To me, if you expect 15 from him and he is well short, and you go down...that's bad luck, not bad bidding. If you give him 15 and he goes down just a bit...maybe he was being a tad aggressive. This might be OK. If he goes down a lot, it's usually bad bidding. You can't address luck; you can address bad choices.)

The other risk of bidding is, your partner can have something like this:


This hand has 25 meld and 8 tricks (5 from clubs as trump, 3 aces), so 45 total. This is enough for him to bid 60, expecting you to give a typical 15. That may WELL be enough to take the bid...and you'll make it, but hey, this is a *great* hand for you. (Partner cashes then exits with a diamond that you ruff. That's 1 trick. NO hearts have been played, so 2 of your aces *probably* cash, and maybe all 3. AWESOME. FAR better than you'd expect.)

Now, of course, reverse his club and diamond holdings, and life might be touch and go. But that's ok if his bid doesn't work out some of the time. The point is, HE has a real hand worth bidding without considering your hand. YOUR hand isn't. His hand is also not quite good *enough* to compete against your hand range when you do open...he'd have to pass this hand when you open 50.

So mick's right...gosh, you SO want to open...but generally, you just *can't*. You have the tricks and trump quality; you just don't have the meld.

[rakbeater]

It is well known that I'm pretty conservative. Always take that into account.