Bid to the Level of the fit

More Ditties BridgeCast this week from Level 3. BridgeCast is Andrew's monthly subscription service, join him as he presents a daily deal. To find out more click here. Taken from  Andrew's "Rules, Acronyms and Ditties" book which is, providing the inspiration, for his current series of Level 3 daily videos on BridgeCast.

Whenever you are bidding competitively, not necessarily to make but rather to spoil, you should work out how many cards are held by your partnership and bid for that number of tricks. This is termed “bidding to the level of the fit”. It makes life extremely awkward for the opponents.

Say left-hand opponent opens 1 ♥, partner bids 1 ♠ as an overcall and right-hand opponent bids 2 ♦. What now with these hands?

(i). 2 ♠. Partner has five spades for the overcall so your side has an eight-card fit. Bid for eight tricks – 2 ♠.

(ii). 3 ♠. Presumed nine-card spade fit – bid for nine tricks.
(iii). 4 ♠. Presumed ten-card spade fit – bid for ten tricks.

Note that if partner actually holds a sixth spade for his overcall of 1 ♠, he knows that the level of the fit is one higher than you think. He would go up from 2 ♠ to 3 ♠ in (i); from 3 ♠ to 4 ♠ in (ii) and, if necessary (only), up from 4 ♠ to 5 ♠ in (iii).

Bidding to the level of the fit is a very effective spoiling strategy, but you must not be blind to the vulnerability (be more cautious when vulnerable), nor to the shape of your hand – notice the singletons in (ii) and (iii) above. If you are very flat and vulnerable, you are well advised to bid one fewer than the level of the fit.

On our deal West led ♥ 4 v 4 ♠, East winning ♥ A and, suspecting West began with four hearts and therefore declarer just one, found the best switch to ♣ Q. Declarer had to hope West held ♦ K and needed to promote dummy’s ♦ Q right away – before the defence had set up a third- round club trick. This meant delaying trumps – which involved losing the lead and a tempo.

Declarer rose with ♣ A at trick two and led ♦ 2 (key play). West rose with ♦ K and continued with ♣ 9 but declarer won ♣ K, cashed the promoted ♦ Q, trumped ♥ 5 and cashed ♦ A discarding ♣ 8. Only now could he play on trumps – now dummy could trump a third club. 10 tricks and game made.