Page 26 - ABF Newsletter October 2024

TEACHING
TIPS
with Ian Dalziel
LIMIT BIDS AND CAPTAINCY
In the uncontested auction, points really matter. If you can calculate the com- bined points of your partnership (high card and distribution points), you know how high to bid – partscore, game or slam. The easy bit is counting your own points; working out your partner’s strength is the hard bit and that is what a bidding system is for.
Now here is the key. It is not necessary for each member of the partnership to tell the other their points. All that’s necessary is, that at some point in the auc- tion, one player declares his point range by making a limit bid; his partner then knows the total, becomes the captain, and takes charge of further bidding.
Ian Dalziel is a teacher and regular columnist for “Mr Bridge” magazine in the UK, where
A limit bid is a notrump bid or the second bid in the same suit by the part- this column was originally published. nership, whichever comes first. The limit bid shows a narrow point range and the shape of the hand. In the
Page: 26 Australian Bridge Federation Ltd. Newsletter: October 2024