Whether the opponents entered the bidding or not, you still have to have a certain trick-taking potential when dummy comes down and the rubber hits the road. The cards don't know who entered the bidding and who did not. They simply offer a certain potential in any given denomination. This potential will shift this way and that by choices made, of course (on all but a relatively few pat hands), but you can't squeeze 9 or 10 tricks out of a 7-trick potential -- except, yes, occasionally on inept defense. But even there, aside from suggesting that you don't want to base your bidding for the long haul on inept defense (do you?), have you noticed how often you get this inept defense that "justifies" your bidding, and how often you don't for a serious penalty?
Overcalls traditionally can be made on fewer hcp's than opening bids, but with a a solider suit. In addition to offering the possibility of a fit, the lead-directing property of overcalls must also save points not too rarely. So it is right and advisable to get your overcalls in early and await developments. But if you made a light overcall on, say 8-10 hcp's, then you made a light overcall that even a fit with your partner, though comforting, doesn't make your hand any stronger than already indicated.
There is nothing like a fit, as I have said elsewhere, but they simply can't make up for a significant shortfall in hcp's (except, of course, for wild distribution like 6-6-1-0). In particularly, I want to emphasize that 8-card fits are very modest fits. That is the number of trump traditionally desired as a minimum and this number works very well by and large when you hold the preponderance of the points. But when you don't hold the preponderance of the hcp's, particularly when you get under 18, you just can't survive on that modest fit, and I could give any number of hands where the side with 5 trump made more tricks than the side with 8. So please don't confuse the attractiveness of 8-card fits when it's "your" hand with safety on an 8-card fit when it's not.
"Sorry, partner, but I expect you to have more for that bid." I don't know how often I've heard that on these expensive overcalls. And I have always felt that the comment is offkey, well, particularly for a continuing partnership. For one thing, this is clearly a double-edged comment. "I'm going to say 'sorry', partner, but it appears you really overbid your hand." More important, I believe, your parnter's hand isn't your concern. . Oh, I know I'm out on a highwire here. The refutations to that dictum are fairly obvious. "We are a partnership, right? So how can we bid intelligently if we don't take our partner's hand into consideration?" That is certainly a legitimate objection. Nevertheless, I'll stick with my statement. Your partner's bid is most definitely your concern. You take the minimum your partner has promised in both point count and length and bid accordingly. But you can't see your partner's hand. You can't know just where his points lie; you can't know whether's he's at top of his bid or the bottom, has greater length in his suit than the minimum promised or not. You can only take his bid and decide on your bid accordingly. Your hand is your concern. Have you already bid all your values? Or are you perhaps a king or more stronger than thus far promised.
If you have already bid all your values, then it doesn't matter if your partner has shown a fit, or made a non-forcing jump. You've bid your hand and only a forcing bid should bring forth another on-going (encouraging) bid (as opposed to showing preference, or rebidding a six-card major opposite a no trump response to a major-suit opening, which is no stronger than a pass, only wiser). In short, I would ask, don't you commonly feel a little underbid or overbid or right on the money with a bid even a curmudgeon couldn't find fault with?
I'm not going to advise on just how much "lessoning" between partners should go on, for obviously that's something each partnership will have to work out for itself. But I will say that if your partnership feels comfortable with going over hands to sharpen your bidding, then it behooves you to come to some terms of what you're promising at what level. That's not to suggest that any pair will completely avoid overbids or underbids, but that they should be cut to a minimum. And "Sorry, partner," should segué into an examination of whether the "accused" did indeed promise more than he had, or the overbidder assumed too much and bid the same values twice on that assumption. Or maybe if it was one of those tough-and-go hands where no one has violated common sense, but it just didn't turn out right. For I wouldn't suggest that every hand without a good result merits blame somewhere. But the real disasters? Yes, if you want to be competitive players. The real disasters should be examined and the blameworthy party should recognize what brought the disaster on.
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