Penalty for Violating Culbertson’s Rule

Back to one of my favorite themes, Culbertson’s Rule …

Culbertson’s Rule (from Jeff Rubens’ classic book The Secrets of Winning Bridge) says to invite game (or slam) when the contract could be cold opposite a well-fitting minimum for partner’s bidding.  If the contract being cold requires a well-fitting maximum, then forget about it.  Or, as Bob Hamman has been quoted as saying, “don’t play me for perfect cards; I won’t have them!”.

As stated in prior blog entries on the subject, a benefit of applying Culbertson’s Rule is that the application motivates the bidder to anticipate how the play might progress, which surely must be a better guide than the numeric evaluation guides that abound, such as total trumps or Losing Trick Count.  (The latter, and similar, guides can be highly useful when less is known about partner’s hand; but when the auction has developed to provide more information about partner’s hand, I find that Culbertson’s Rule is a superior evaluation tool.)

You begin the following auction, with relevant partnership agreements footnoted:

Your call?

Applying Culbertson’s Rule, you “give” partner this hand: ♠AKxxx ♥xx ♦Kx ♣Axxx.  That’s enough for the high reverse of 3♣, because partner would have opened the hand if the ♦K were a small diamond.  But it is a minimum for a high reverse.  And it surely is well-fitting: having the ♣A instead of, say, ♣KQ is well-fitting, and the fit value of the ♦K is obvious.

And so, you now ask yourself, how cold is 6♠ opposite such a hand?

Not so cold at all, assuming the expected lead of a heart.  It surely might make, but it takes a 3-2 trump split for starters, plus 4-2 or 3-3 diamond split so that the losing heart can be pitched when there is only the master opposing trump outstanding.

Therefore, you should, IMHO, signoff over the 4♣ call.  (But if partner had bid serious 3NT instead of 4♣, then you should continue [in fact, as we play, a below game control bid is required]: add, say, the ♠Q to partner’s hand, and slam looks way better.)  (Another side note: a fourth trump from your hand would have been worth a lot: you can expect to need to ruff out clubs, and ruffs can be limited – either from a trump lead by the opponents or by running out of trumps before the ruffing is completed – when you own only three card trump support.)

Feeling frisky, I guess, at the table you go on over 4♣ and partner soon finds himself in 6♠ and does, in fact, receive the expected heart lead, specifically the ♥3.

Uffda!  You need to get rid of the heart loser, and you need to bring in the black suits for only one loser.  No easy task.

After winning the ♥A in dummy at Trick 1 (RHO playing a telling ♥K), you take the diamond ruffing finesse:  ♦A, ♦Q (not covered) upon which you pitch your remaining heart.  The ♦Q holds the trick!  Conveniently left in dummy, you turn your attention next to the club suit.  With dummy having only three trumps, you do not believe you can afford to play to ruff out both missing club honors.  So you lead a club from dummy to take a finesse.  With RHO having signaled probable ownership of ♥KQJ and the diamond play placing with her the ♦K, you decide to finesse the ♣T, hoping that it draws the king.  And the ♣T wins the trick!  Is luck on your side, or what?

You next play the ♣A (small clubs all around) and a third club (small from LHO, and the ♣J from RHO).  Now a heart ruff to reach hand and a fourth club to dummy.  LHO does not ruff in and a club ruff sets up your long club. Now holding four spades and the good ♣Q in hand, you lead dummy’s last trump to your hand, and no matter what you do, you end up making an unexpected +1460, the whole hand being:

Note: the hand record at the club shows North owning the ♦K, but surely the play at the table suggests that South owned the ♦K as shown above.

Violate Culbertson’s Rule at your own risk.  Sometimes the penalty is no penalty at all: lottery ticket purchase time?