Dlan wrote: Thu Dec 24, 2020 12:02 pm
A part of the bidding process is to give your partner information. In this example, south passes at a score in which a lone call would have given a win to E/W. To his partner in north, this means he has a lone stopped by holding either left-X or the right. For north it’s time to name trump.
I agree with the logic but not when one's team is up 8-7. Up 8-7, S1 cannot just donate freely. The cost of giving up 2 pts and going down 9-8 is just too much. Down 9-8 with the deal only equates to approx 36% equity. Most of the time it will be worth gambling hoping to hold the enemy to 1 pt and then get the deal at 8-8 with 54% equity. So in this spot one should not count on their P to be guarded. Now if we change the score to up 9-7 or up 9-6, then I love S3's call for reasons stated above.
There are times I will donate up 8-7, but the situation has to be really dire becuz putting my team down 9-8 with just 36% equity is a pretty big deal. I'm not gonna do that without a compelling reason. Here are the hands I would donate with in this spot:
No trump-no aces vs a Jack
No trump+1 off ace vs a Jack
1 trump-no aces vs a Jack.
No trump-no aces + no 2nd rd hand vs any other upcard
Other hands up for donate considerations:
No trump-no aces vs an Ace
1 low trump + no aces + no 2nd rd hand vs any upcard.
That's pretty much it. Donating up 8-7 is such a big move that ideally a team playing together in real life would talk this spot over and work out some kind of agreement.
