The benefits of overbidding

My Junior team have been competing in the SBU Bronze League, which has all been online. If I'm the home captain I set up the match on Bridge Base andcan watch the boards.

I've taught my Junior team to "pre-empt to the max" and "bid all games" which combined with their natural attacking instincts makes for some exciting boards. I would say on the whole their aggressive style gains more than it loses, although I do wish they would stop bidding bad slams.

Here's an example from a match against Razputin. You are vulnerable against not, and your right-hand opponent opens 1♦. Your bid?

I'm pleased to say our South went all-out with 4♠. Jumping to game-level is very effective, as the opponents can't tell if you are pre-empting with a weak hand or bidding with a good hand that expects to make. So there's a very good chance you won't get doubled.

If the opponets play a lot of takeout doubles it might be hard for either of them to double you. Here though, 4♠ did get doubled. and was heading for three off, vulnerable. Is this an argument against such bold overbidding? Maybe not. The defence isn't always perfect and declarer escaped for down two:

The defence took one Club then played three rounds of Hearts (setting up dummy's Jack). Then declarer drew trumps, corrrectly by leading the King of Spades. West won and guessed to play on Diamonds. That meant declarer could ruff the second round of Diamonds then cross to the winning ♠8 to take a winning Heart and discard the other Club. So he escaped for only two off, doubled.

At this vulnerability that was still -500, more than letting East-West make a game. But perhaps East-West can make a slam? If both the minors split there are 13 top tricks, and even with Diamonds 4-1 there are 12. It's hard to bid though. Our other pair made 5♦+1 (after South only overcalled 2♠), so overall a small loss on the board.

So perhaps pre-empting all the way to 4♠ on this board only makes sense if you are playing really good opponents who might get to the slam.

Here's another hand from the same match where we overbid:

East made a weak two opening and our South overcalled 2♠. West has an easy 4♥ bid and its over to North. On the one hand you have a weak hand with only two card trump-support. On the other hand it's favourable vulnerability, and when you bid 4♠ it's very hard for them to double. West has a likely three tricks in his hand, but possibly no more than three, so just passed. He may also have been put off by the fact he'd doubled North in a making contract on the previous hand.

As it happens 4♠ hits the jackpot here, as your partner has strong Spades. And, crucially, little enough defence so that 4♥ would have made.

Playing 4♠ isn't too bad, and only has three top losers. Here the defence played trumps and declarer ended up losing two Hearts, one Spade and one Diamond for one off. A good result.

In conclusion (based on these two boards and three seasons in the SBU Bronze League) overbidding is often effective. It works especially well when the defence are in the dark. That means you need to bid high quickly, especially with jumps to game level. Then it'll be much harder for them to double you.