Overcalls

Single-suited Overcalls

When one of your opponents opens the bidding, and you decide that you also want to bid, you are doing what we call ‘overcalling’. When you move on to advanced bidding, we will introduce you to ways of overcalling hands with two long suits but for now, just overcall your longer suit, or if you have two equal-length suits of 5+ cards, start with an overcall of the higher ranking suit.

Try some hands

Hand 1

Your right hand opponent is the dealer, and they open the bidding. You choose your overcall, and your partner will raise your suit by one level, showing a fit, but a weak hand. You can see that you don’t have enough points for game, so you should pass on your next bid.

Hand 2

Your right hand opponent is the dealer, and they open the bidding. You choose your overcall, and your partner will raise your suit by one level, showing a fit. Just like with pre-emptive openings, you should not bid again after a pre-emptive overcall. See if you can ruff away a heart loser quickly, even when the suit is blocked.

Hand 3

As with the first two hands, you choose your overcall after East’s opening bid. This time, your partner is very enthusiastic about your choice of suit and they put you in game, despite not having very many high card points. See if you can figure out how to make twelve tricks!

Hand 4

You just need to make your overcall at the right level, and you will silence your opponents, depriving them of a nice game contract. Think carefully before you play to the third trick!

Back

Single-suited Overcalls

Discover how bidding your suit at different levels describes both the length of your suit and strength of your hand – just like with opening bids.

Question 1/7

Penelope has opened 1♣ and Boris has a nice 14 point hand. What should he bid?

Even though he has more than enough points to have opened the bidding, Boris is in a tricky position here. He needs a five card suit to overcall and his longest suit is four cards. He has to pass and see what happens. Maybe he will get a chance to bid later in the auction.

Same start to the auction, but this time Boris only has 11 points. What should he bid?

The important difference here is that Boris has a five card suit. Because there is room to bid hearts at the one level, Boris can do that with as few as 9 points. So here, he can go ahead and bid 1♥, showing 5+ hearts and 9+ points.

This time, Penelope's opening bid is 1♠. What should Boris bid now?

Boris does have a nice five card heart suit, and if he had room to bid at the one level he would certainly show it. However, Penelope's 1♠ opening means that if he wanted to bid hearts Boris would have to go to the 2 level. This would show at least 12 points, so he is not strong enough. He must pass for now to avoid misleading his partner.

Penelope has gone back to her old ways and opened 1♣ . What should Boris bid?

Boris does not have many points, but he has a nice, shapely hand, with a six card heart suit and a singleton. By jumping to the two level when he had a 1♥ bid available, Boris shows a weak hand with a six card suit. Perfect! This is called a weak jump overcall.

Boris has picked up a magnificent 20 points! Penelope was the dealer though, and she has got in first with her 1♣ bid. What should Boris bid here?

Remember that important thing from the video? Hands in an overcall position with 18 or more points start with double. If Walter, as the next player to bid, passes, Ophelia will be forced to bid (we will learn more about this in the module on takeout doubles) and then Boris will show his very strong hand with his next bid.

Another really interesting hand for Boris, but in a different way. What should he do this time?

This is another case of the weak jump overcall. Like pre-emptive openings, these bids are great for making things difficult for your opponents. Because he has a seven card suit this time, Boris can jump to the three level. Now his partner will know he has a weak hand, because he jumped to a higher level than necessary to bid his suit, and she will know that he has a seven card suit because he went to 3♠, rather than 2♠.

Another 1♣ opening, another decision for Boris, who has quite a whacky hand this time. How many diamonds should he bid?

Boris has an eight card suit! You don't see many of those. Because his hand is weak, he should make a jump overcall to give his partner the true picture, and because he has eight of them, he should jump to the four level.

The links below will take you to BridgeTraining.com, where you can practice choosing overcalls before playing the hands. As always, we will give you some notes on each hand to help you get to the best contract. If you don’t manage to make the right number of tricks first time, you can have as many goes as you like.