Misfit Auctions: Put the Brakes On Early
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A simple rule that will serve you well is when you and your partner are misfitting, put on the brakes, do less. If pass is an option, its probably the correct one.
Lets look at some examples
Example 1. When this hand came up, the correct action was to pass. Making 2♠was a struggle, anything else was too high.
Example 2.
The hand has 12 points, but the suits are fairly bare (no 10’s and 9’s). Importantly, you are misfitting with your partner – its harder to make his suit work when you only hold a small singleton there. In other words, your hands probably aren’t complementing each other. A simple 1NT is sufficient.
Example 3. You pick up a nice looking hand, and to add partner opens the bidding.
The hand should start to look quite a lot worse. You have a void in partner’s 6+ card suit. Slam or grand slam could’ve been possible opposite the right cards, but with points opposite your void its likely 3NT will be high enough. The exact bid from here is a matter of system and style, but the point is to be cautious and take pessimistic action from this point, putting on the brakes when you are misfitting.
Where to next
Build the habit with guided practice
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