Burnham Bridge Club
Competitive Bidding at Pairs
3
Competitive Bidding: How Are We Doing?
•
•We started with 50% or half the match-points
•How have events thus far altered this?
•Bidding is an uncertain process – a gamble
•Gambling is most successful when the odds are in our favour
Whilst the cards are still in the board, we’re at 50%. Once the auction starts, our probable share of the match-points is likely to change.

Not all hands involve competitive bidding; sometimes one side or the other has a fairly clear route to a fairly obvious contract, and the division of the match-points is going to be determined by decisions in the play of the hand. That’s another story.

This doesn’t mean that the defending side has no part to play in the auction: sometimes by bidding a suit, doubling a cipher bid, etc has the aim of getting partner to make the best lead. But this isn’t really competing – we’re just sticking an early oar into the proceedings.

A quick example of this..