IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
With Larry Matheny
The simple overcall can be employed for
several reasons. You might try to buy
the contract, suggest a sacrifice, or impede the opponents. It can also be used to request the suit be
led.
Scoring: Matchpoints (Pairs)
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Bidding: North-South had a
routine auction to game.
Play: West
led the ten of clubs won in dummy.
Declarer drew trumps and then discarded his three spades on the rest of
the clubs. He conceded a trick to the
ace of diamonds and scored +480 for taking twelve tricks.
Why is this hand of
interest? East had a chance to make a
lead-directing 1
overcall but failed to do so. In fact,
in a thirteen-table game this hand was played in 4
twelve times and only twice did East make the overcall. For holding their opponents to ten tricks,
those two E-W pairs scored 10.5 matchpoints while other ten E-W pairs were
awarded only 4.5 matchpoints. What about
the thirteenth E-W pair? They defeated 6
two tricks for a top score of 12 matchpoints.
The overcall is a
useful weapon and should not be used indiscriminately. However, as this hand demonstrates, when used
at the one-level it does not have to show extra values
Copyright 2014