The optimum contract is that contract which offers the best chances, in unopposed bidding, of gaining bonus points for part-score, game or slam whilst minimising the risk of failure. It is that contract which cannot be improved upon by further bidding nor could it have been improved upon by taking a different line in earlier bidding.
At Chicago or IMP scoring it is generally worth bidding game even with a slightly less than 50% chance of success due to the relatively high value of the bonuses (especially when vulnerable). In duplicate pairs scoring, the subtle difference between a major suit game, a NT game and a minor suit game make the choice of denomination an important decision.
Each side has its own optimum contract and, for a side with poor hands, "pass" may be the optimum call.
Read more about this topic: Optimum Contract And Par Contract
Famous quotes containing the words optimum and/or contract:
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—J.G. (James Graham)
“The way in which men cling to old institutions after the life has departed out of them, and out of themselves, reminds me of those monkeys which cling by their tails—aye, whose tails contract about the limbs, even the dead limbs, of the forest, and they hang suspended beyond the hunter’s reach long after they are dead. It is of no use to argue with such men. They have not an apprehensive intellect, but merely, as it were a prehensile tail.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)