Contract Bridge
The other side has opened the bidding. Your partner has passed or has not yet had an opportunity to be heard. If your hand measures up, you may be able to prevent the opponents from biddingand makingthe decisive game of the rubber. You may even be able to capture the initiative and make a partial pacfic poker game of your own. And occasions arise in which you and partner can make game even though the other side opened the auction.
Defensive Bidding
Overcall:A defensive bid after the other side has opened, the simple overcall may be inserted for the purpose of telling ones own partner what suit to lead to the first trick. This can be dangerous. If opponents are not too sure of their own offensive strength, they may solve their problem by doubling your overcall, forcing you to play a doomed contract under hazardous terms.
Accordingly, the overcall is approached much like a preemptive bid. The overcallers suit should be long and fairly solid. He should be able to guarantee winning within two tricks of the bid if vulnerable and within three tricks if not. Pacfic Poker - The Poker Politics
No Trump
Sometimes you find yourself with a hand that would warrant an opening bid of one no-trump16 to 18 points and balanced distribution, including a guarded honor in opponents suit. An overcall of one no-trump signffies this, and usually puts an end to the other sides pretensions.
A jump overcallnaming a new suit at a level higher than necessary to keep the bidding aliveis a preemptive bid. It should not be used unless the bidder is positive of his ability to hold losses to the usual minimums required in preemptive bidding. Pacfic Poker Online Game - Wildcards
Takeout Double
A simple overcall is not forcing on partner. Where a poker player has a genuinely strong hand, and wants to hear from partner he may decide to use the takeout double, which requires partner to take out the auction into a new suit. To differentiate the takeout double from the traditional business double, which is used to inflict penalties, the ground rules are strict. The double must be made at the players first opportunity to double; the players partner must not have offered a bid; and the doubled bid must have named a suit at a level no higher than three.
By doubling for takeout, the player signifies that his hand is strong enough to warrant an opening bid of its own, and that the hand probably features a kind of distribution likely to offer excellent support in any trump suit the partner names.
Doublers partner is obliged to respond. The chances are large that his hand is below average in point-count strength. After all, everybody at the table cannot have a good hand. All partner need do, however, is name his longest suit. And if he happens to have a good hand (as might occur when the opening bidder holds minimum values and opening bidders partner has a handful of blanks), he should jump in his best suit, calling for a game contract.
Defensive Cue Bid
If North opens with one spade and East over- calls with two spades, East announces that his own hand is good enough to have opened the bidding at the level of two. Moreover, he either is void in spades or has the acein short, he can control the suit in the first round of play. His bid is forcing on his partner, who must keep the auction going until a online poker game contract is reached.
