How often do you sacrifice or bid on over your opponents' sacrifice at a high level and find you have made the wrong decision? Be honest now. If you kept a record you would probably find you get at least 2 out of 3 decisions wrong. And wrong high level decisions of this type are often extremely expensive. So expensive that Michael Rosenberg, an American international says you should never sacrifice at all in teams. If you get it wrong you have often made a huge mistake, which can in effect cost you the match. Although Michael Rosenberg did not refer to pairs, never sacrificing in pairs will probably benefit you in the long run as well.

You can make better decisions if you have a thorough understanding of the Law of Total Tricks, but even then you can still get things wrong. Actually, another "never" evolves out of the Law of Total Tricks, Never bid 5 over 5.

Last Thursday (22 June 2017) two enterprising declarers wished they had remembered or known about the "nevers". In our example hands they both decided the pass or double card was not for them, and bid on for complete bottoms. On hand 16 West decided to bid 5 spades after the opponents had opened with a pre-empt in clubs and barraged to 5♣.  5♣ was two off, and 5♠ was one off. Ouch!

But is there any situation when you might think about bidding 5 over 5. Personally the only time I even consider it is

(a) the opponents and ourselves are very likely on the bidding to have good long trump fits ( probably at least 10 card fits each) and

(b) I have a void, or I know from the bidding both sides have excellent long fits in two suits, and

(c) I am not at adverse vulnerability.

If I have any doubts I pass, or Double particularly if I have quick defensive tricks.

A more common sacrifice position came up on board 4,our featured hand. The doubled 5♣ contract ended 3 off for -800. Other than the never sacrifice rule, why should West not sacrifice. Sure West can see that there is likely to be an 11 card fit in clubs, so based on the crude Law of Total Tricks,5♣ should be the right level. However, the balanced nature of the hand is awful. If you are even thinking of a sacrifice at the 5 level over a major suit game, to my mind you should have at least a singleton. But is East blameless? Yes a club lead is required from partner as early as possiblle in the probable defence of the hand, but with a balanced hand ( i.e. no singleton), is the 2♣ bid a good one? Two balanced hands sacrificing at the 5 level is not going to lead to a happy outcome.

Michael Whittaker

28 June 2017