8 The Captain Rule

This is one of the most important and fundamental rules in the game, and ignorance of it can lead to constant muddles, wrong bids, and negative scores, so consider this carefully.

If one of the partners has made a limit bid, the other partner is captain.

What is a limit bid? Well, any bid that defines the bidder’s strength within narrow limits. Here are the obvious ones: all genuine No Trump bids, all suit raises, all overcalls and pre-empts. There are a few others but these can wait.

The main thing about any limit bid is that you should make it only once, and forever thereafter hold your peace, unless partner makes you or requests you to bid. Partner is captain. But things work correctly only if the limit bidder has told the whole truth first time.  The worst offenders are the overcallers who take two or three bites of the apple thus:

Opponents: 1D:  Overcaller: 1H: Opponents: 1S; Overcaller: 2H: Opponents: 2S: Overcaller: 3H. If our flexible overcaller really is worth 3H, she* should have bid 3H in the first place instead of making her poor partner wonder what she is really worth. And if she isn’t worth it, then she should have left things to her partner. So I am saying, if you are going to overcall, or pre-empt, get it right first time, go for the max.

(*She or he of course)

Now, if the limit bidder really has bid to the limit, partner is captain and makes all further decisions. And if that decision is to pass the opponents’ last bid, then limiter should trust partner and stay out of it. The point is that captain knows limiter’s hand but limiter doesn’t know captain’s. You wouldn’t believe some of the crazy sequences I have witnessed. I’ve just given you one of them, here’s another I witnessed years ago (two partners here, not playing transfers): 1NT -  2S - 2NT - 3S - 3NT! Don’t ask if they made it. It really is sad to see partners fighting each other.  Contrast that with this excellent partnership dialogue, playing transfers:

1NT - 2H - 2S - 2NT - 3NT  where the no-trumper rebid only at partner’s behest. What the no-trumper should never do is to volunteer a second bid.

Sound advice: Always strive to make a limit bid where you can, so partner can judge more accurately what to do instead of guessing.