In the Aubrey novels of Patrick O’Brian, the doctor Stephen Maturin classifies a patient’s condition as excellent, indifferent or dead. In the same way, bridge players are expert, ordinary or clueless. We know who the expert players at Barnstaple are, and this article is not for them. Clueless bridge players do not read bridge articles, and besides there aren’t any in our club. The rest of us are ordinary players who don’t play at congresses and do play perhaps a couple of times a week, often in a variety of partnerships. This article is for the Ordinary Club Player (OCP) - like me.
People say that transfers enable the lead to come up to the stronger hand. This is true, but this advantage must be weighed against the next points.
People argue that transfers enable the strong hand to be concealed. This thinking does not go far enough. If the 1NT opener’s hand is declarer, based on a narrow point count of 12-14, defenders can work out declarer’s holding as the hand develops: often to the placing of particular high cards. Whereas a weak take-out (WTO) has a far wider point range: from 0 to 10, withholding much more information from defenders. The advantages of concealment, therefore, argue in favour of WTO.
Normally, transfers can only be used when the weak hand’s length is in two suits: hearts or spades. WTO can be used in three suits: diamonds, hearts and spades. WTO therefore enables the partnership to escape at the two-level 50% more often than using transfers.
A transfer bid gives the enemy an opportunity to make a lead-directing double. WTO does not have this disadvantage. Even the absence of a lead-directing double of a transfer will help a defender find a good lead. For example, after a transfer bid of 2D, the absence of lead-directing double will guide the leading defender to consider leading club or a spade. A look at his own hand will then help him decide which; and reach a better-informed decision than after a WTO sequence.
People say that transfers are useful for bidding stronger combinations, where responder has a good hand and say a 5-4 fit in the majors. I cannot remember a hand which could not be bid adequately without transfers, for example by using Stayman accurately and fully.
Unless you play with only one partner all the time, transfers require you each time to agree and memorise a one-off partnership system. For most of us Ordinary Club Players, that is at least distracting and sometimes a source of misunderstanding when one partner forgets. For the OCP playing twice a week like me, transfer opportunities do not come up often enough for this risk and overhead of effort to pay off, compared with using one’s limited powers of concentration on, say, reading signals, counting or playing the cards well. I certainly make more mistakes when using transfers. The additional agreements for transfers include:-
What do you do after a double of partner’s opening 1NT?
What do you do after an intervention of 2C or 2D over partner’s 1NT?
Does previous answer depend on whether the 2C/2D intervention is conventional or natural?
What do you do after other interventions over 1NT?
Test your partnership understanding by writing down your answers, and then asking your partner the same questions: compare the answers.
There are further tactical advantages to WTO over transfers. After responder’s transfer bid, his left hand opponent can wait for the transfer to be completed, and bid again next round. But WTO gives him less time to think about overcalling or doubling: indeed he has just the one immediate chance to make his decision. Sometimes, rather than hesitate for an unethically long time, he will pass – when he shouldn’t. This problem of quick and unfamiliar decisions is more acute these days when opponents encounter so few WTO partnerships. And then there are a few opponents who in George Bush’s phrase ‘misunderestimate’ you, when you announce that you play WTO. ‘How quaint’ one of them said – before scoring a bottom.
In a partnership playing WTO for four years, we have gained from opponents’ mix-ups with transfers much more often than we suffered by not using them ourselves.
Yes, it’s fun to watch the wheels go round, but I believe the disadvantages of transfers, as set out above, outweigh the advantages. Better for us OCPs to devote our puny mental effort to playing the cards well, for example on safety plays and combining chances. WTO is a winning strategy: it will seldom cost you, it is less strain on the concentration and offers less scope for partnership misunderstandings.
This piece is designed to provoke, and to wake up any bridge brains still hibernating in the snow. I look forward to receiving your comments: howls of disdain and reasoned responses are equally welcome.
Richard McLaughlin
January 2010