Director ! She Hesitated by Ted Ying

Director!  She Hesitated !!

by Ted Ying

ª-QJ74 ©-76 ¨-K42 §-KT93     "Well, this is an easy hand.  Better still

                               partner bid; and a suit I can raise!  Oh

LHO	Pard	RHO	You    drat, why did partner have to hesitate,

---------------------------    now I can't bid.  I'll just have to pass"

P	1ª	X	2ª

3©	P (1)	P	?      Does this sound like a situation that you

                               have been in?  Do you often feel that you

(1) Unusually long hesitation  need time to think but that the hesitation

                               rule makes it difficult for you to do this?

Here are some useful tips for intermediate players so that you know your

rights and wrongs.

	First of all, the hesitation rule and the ruling is not punishment

for hesitating, but a means of protecting the opponents.  We all know that

no matter what your level of play, there are times when everyone needs to

stop and think about a hand and times when the various options require some

consideration.  You shouldn't think that you are immediately barring 

partner from taking *ANY* action when you hesitate.  When you hesitate, 

though, you may restrict the options that partner has.  If you hesitate 

in an auction, you should strive to take a bid (a non-pass call) when 

possible.  If you hesitate and then pass, you may restrict what partner 

can do because partner will need to be very sure of his/her bid to respond.

Partner is not barred; partner needs to be very cautious to bid only very 

obvious, definite bids and should not take any borderline actions.  The 

reasoning behind this is that when you hesitate and pass, you convey the 

information to partner that you were considering taking an action.  It 

makes it much more likely that partner will be able to bid on borderline 

hands when (s)he knows that you have enough extra values to consider 

taking a different action from a pass.

On the other hand, if you hesitate and then take a bid, then there

is less restriction on partner.  It could very easily be that you knew that

you were going to bid, but that you were just debating which bid to make.

Since this tends to give less specific information, there are fewer

implications from your hesitation and less unauthorized information for

partner to base a decision on.  This is one way to help prevent a problem

when you have a hesitation in the auction.

Now, if you are the partner of the player who hesitated, you have a 

different decision to consider.  When your partner hesitates in an

auction, you are supposed to completely ignore the hesitation and make

your bids and plays based solely on the values in your own hand.  What does

that mean?  If you ask a director about hesitation situations, the director

will warn the partner of the player who hesitated that (s)he must be 

cautious not to take any inference from the hesitation and that (s)he 

must make sure to only make bids based on the values in his/her own hand.

What does this mean?  How can you only evaluate your own hand?  The general

rule is to think what you would do had partner not hesitated and only 

take a call that you definitely would have made.  If you are at all unsure

what you are supposed to do, you should make the simplest and most common

response you can.  The current ACBL Laws [ie., guidelines] state that you

need to make a 100% call; one that 100% of your peers (players of the 

same caliber as you) would make in the same situation (without the 

hesitation).

But, this does not mean that you are barred or must pass.  For example, 

in the hand at the start of this article, what do you do when partner 

makes a long hesitation? You have a hand that would always compete to the

three level.  You have 9 HCP (a maximum), an extra trump (the Law of Total 

Tricks protects you, if you use that rule for competing) and you have 

shortness in the suit you are balancing against (hearts).  No matter how 

you look at it, most players of intermediate or higher level would consider 

this an automatic 3ª call and you should not feel that you have to pass 

this bid.  You have a perfectly normal 3ª call that everyone in your 

situation would make.  So bid it.  On the other hand if you had one fewer 

spade or 2 fewer points*, you should always pass because you have a 

borderline hand and you normally wouldn't (or shouldn't) compete. The only 

thing that suggests that you compete is partner's hesitation before

bidding.

So, although you should try to avoid hesitating when possible, don't feel 

that you cannot hesitate sometimes to consider your options.Likewise, when

your partner has hesitated, don't feel that this bars you from taking a 

very reasonable action, just make sure that you don't let partner's 

hesitation influence your call.  And most of all, don't get angry when 

you or partner hesitates and the opponents call for the director

or as some players are wont to do, bellow for the director).  Just bid

as well as you can.

*Editors note: There are some that would say you could not compete without the fourth trump no matter what the point count and if you were playing "constructive" raises you would be barred with the hand you hold.