WEAK OPENINGS

"Watson!" The famous detective, Sherlock Holmes, was clearly in a bate. "Come over here at once."

"Of course, Holmes, of course. Whatever you say," I obliged.

"Look at this hand - go on look at it."

x

Qxx

AQxxxx

Qxx

"Er ye-es, I remember. I opened 1D did I not. Was I remiss in some respect, Holmes?"

"Not at all Watson. The 1 D opening is mandatory. But what exactly was your plan, assuming I made a normal response below 2D?"

"Well, er naturally, I was going to re-bid 2D: weak-ish with a 5+ suit."

"Capital, Watson, capital." His eyes turned to me and glinted steel. "But you didn't Watson. Did you?" There was a soft breath of menace in the air. "You re-bid 3D. Didn't you? Very naughty."

"But the opponents bid, er, it got too high, oh Holmes I had to do something!" I sat heavily on a chair in misery. What had l done to deserve his opprobrium this time?

"The bidding was thus, Watson, was it not?

1D - 1S - 1NT - 2S - ???

At which point you rebid 3D. Not 2D, which, as you have previously pointed out, is the limit of the hand in bidding terms from your point of view."

"But Holmes" I went on the attack: "They bid 2S! I couldn't bid 2D! You see?" I felt pretty dam pleased with myself I can tell you. His voice was soft, silky and precise:

"I believe Watson, that you just admitted to me that you couldn't bid 2D in the auction as that spot had been bypassed by aggressive opponents. In which case - as you were unable to bid 2D - can you please tell me why in heaven's name you felt able to bid AT ALL?" His gimlet eyes pierced mine from two inches.

"If as you say you can't bid 2D then you can't bid. Your bid has been taken away. So just PASS! Why make up bids out of thin air? Why pretend to values you do not possess? And most crucially, why mislead partner? Why cause partner to make unwise bids based on incorrect information that result in -800? Hmm?"

I now saw that Holmes was right. He usually was…

Plan your re-bid. If events overtake your plans - PASS. Never ever forget that you have a partner and do not try and bid for them: just bid your hand. At the right level. Then partner will know what to do.

Basic Bidding Refresher Part III – Pre-Empts – 28 Oct 2010

Most of the time you’ll open the bidding with hands of 12+ HCP. However there are some mini opening hands that can be opened one of a suit with slightly less and here we can use the “Rule of 20”, e.g:

KJxxx
x
KJxxx
Qxx

This hand has 10 HCP. Add the number of HCP to the combined length of the two longest suits and if the answer is 20 or more – open 1 of a suit: in this case 1S, preparing to rebid 2D.

This is a way of getting weakish 2-suiters into the auction early. Aggressive bidding within fairly well-defined limits is always a good idea.

And this is also why we make “pre- empts”:

7-Card Suits

x
KJxxxxx
Qxx
xxx

With this hand you can open 3H! You'll have a 7 card suit and 6 - 9 HCP. The idea is simply to destroy the opponents auction before they’ve even had a chance to start. Partner now knows you have rubbish and can either control the auction with a good hand or, with a fit, bid 4H – sometimes to make and sometimes not expecting to make, just to get even more in the way.

This bidding style is called “Barrage Bidding”. The opponents frequently get into the wrong game and often miss slam because you have eaten up their space.

6 Card Suits

The pre-empt idea got extended as players discovered more about bidding. In the 1950s some bright spark thought “Well, hey, if 7- card pre-empts are that good, why not 6-card pre-empts?" and so the Weak Two was born …

xx
KJxxxx
Qxx
xxx

With this hand you open 2H! The principle is exactly the same as above.

Some of you may mourn the loss of the Acol Strong Two bid but to be honest this is an outmoded way of showing strength. Added to which the Weak Two type hand occurs far more frequently. So you will be bidding more and being more of a nuisance than before. This is a VERY Good Thing…

For the more adventurous of you, I can recommend you scour the internet for a variety of bids known as “Lucas Twos”. Then you can open 2S with a 5(!) card suit. Fun fun fun!

Next week : responding to weak openings.

Enjoy!

Kit

Basic Bidding Refresher – 14 October 2010

New players are showing up so here’s a quick summary of how we aim to bid. Commit this to memory!

“BALANCED” Hands (4333, 4432, 5332 shapes) :

• 12 - 14: open 1NT. 15 - 16: open 1 of a suit, rebid 1NT.
• 17 - 18: open 1 of a suit, rebid 2NT.
• 19 - 20: open 1 of a suit, rebid 3NT. 20 -22: open 2NT. 23+: open 2C, rebid 2NT.

WEAK Hands:

• 6 - 10, 6 card suit: open 2D, 2H, or 2S. You CANNOT make a weak 2 bid in Clubs!
• 6 - 10, 7 card suit: open a pre-empt at the 3 level.

BIG Hands:

• Open 2NT (balanced 20 -22) or 2C (Unbalanced 21+ OR balanced 23+)

EVERYTHING ELSE…

Will open 1 of a suit. But here the key is the REBID. Sherlock is very keen on the idea that before you make your opening bid you decide what your rebid is going to be. This will depend on your
assessment of your hand. Your hand will normally fall into one of two distinct ranges: 12 - 15 and 16 - 19. With the first you can only make a minimum rebid, but with the second point range you must make some kind of forcing or jump rebid.

Here are some examples of how different rebids tell different stories. Assume partner makes a 1-level response of some kind:

• OPEN: 1H, REBID: 2H. You show 5+ H's and 12 - 15
• OPEN: 1H, REBID: 3H. You show 6+ H's and 16 - 19
• OPEN: 1H, REBID: 2D. You show 5+ H's, 4+ D's and 12 - 15
• OPEN: 1H, REBID: 3D. You show 5+ H's, 4+ D's and 16 - 19

Don’t be shy – bid your hand. I know the opposition (sometimes, even your partner) will contrive to make it difficult for you to bid exactly what you want when you want. Nevertheless, Sherlock says you should have a very good idea of – IDEALLY – what your rebid will be.

The point is that by doing this you are forced to assess the value of your hand at the beginning of the auction, not two-thirds of the way through when you might by then have forgotten why you opened in the first place!

The other key factor is to listen carefully to the bids made by partner and the opposition to see if you can gather information about where certain key cards might be and how that affects the value of your hand. Remember the value of your hand may go down as well as up – just like your investments (hollow laugh…)

Have fun

Kit

Bidding Sequences – How Your Bids Build A Picture – 2 June 2010

Hello you lot! Yes, I’m back again so no more shirking… Great to see so many new faces – Hiya! – and thanks to everyone for helping out, as five tables is a bit of a novelty. Actually I'll be away next week too as I’m forced to go to New York to see my daughter’s gig. However I shall return thereafter refreshed, eager and edgy. And so to bridge …

There are a few times when you can make a bid and that bid says it all about your hand in one go – but very few. This is because there are 52 trillion possible hands and 35 bids. The most simple descriptive bids are 1N, 2N, weak 2’s and weak 3’s, where your hand is quite defined as to points and shape. You have any hand outside these parameters –and there's quite a few trillion of them – then you’re going to have to find other ways to describe all those hands. You do this by means of …

A Sequence

Because you just can’t have one bid to describe all the hands you might have, you have to make use of a sequence of bids that tell a simple story rather like pre-historic pictograms. People ask “what does that bid mean?” Too often the answer is “it doesn't mean anything. Yet.” Just as a Pharaonic name is a cartouche comprised of different pictograms, so a bid in isolation can be meaningless until it is accompanied with a further, more explanatory bid.

When partner opens 1S (playing a natural Acol based system) all we know is that they have at least 4 Spades and somewhere between about 10 - 20 HCP. This is by and large fairly useless information. We cannot assess the joint values of our two hands until we know more exactly about the HCP and the shape opposite and so make a judgement of how our two hands fit together. Depending on our bid in response, partner may rebid 2C,2D, 2H, 2S, 2N, 3C, 3D, 3H, 3S, 3N etc etc etc. But the point is that each of these separate rebids re-defines the hand opposite more narrowly in terms of its HCP as well as its shape. The cartouche has been given extra meaning.

When partner opens (a) 1S, then rebids 2S, this is different from (b) 1S followed by a 3S rebid.

(a) Shows about 10 - 15 HCP and a 5+ card suit (the weaker the hand the longer the suit – theoretically). (b) Shows about 15 - 18 HCP and a 6+ card suit

Neither of these bids in unconditionally forcing, but the cartouche is now clearer than after the first pictogram (bid).

Similarly, 1S followed by (a) 2H or (b) 3H paint different pictures (a) shows 10 -15 with at least 5 Spades and 4 Hearts while (b) shows 16 - 20 HCP again 5 - 4 at least. Could be 5 -5, 6 - 5, 6 - 6. Hopefully this information will gleaned from the third Pictogram (bid). Note that (b) here is unconditionally forcing.

The same is true of the NT rebids after an opening bid of one of a suit:

1NT = 15 - 16
2NT = 17 - 18
3NT = 19 - 20

It follows that when you start to chisel your pictograms in the cartouche on the sandstone block you need to be aware of just what message you intend to convey before you lift the hammer. You are the dealer. What are you going to bid and rebid with the following hand? Decide before you mark the stone…

x
AQxx
AKxxx
Qxx

The first bid is clearly 1D. But haste ye not so fast yet to bid! What is the rebid? What is the hand value? Where are you going? Remember this is a partnership game. OK, you can carve all the cartouches you like but the true meaning of the ancient inscription can only be fully deciphered when your partner’s pictogram has also been included in the cartouche.

Consider: 2N (Game forcing) and 3D (10 - 12, 4 card support) are outside bets from partner but not impossible: with either you make sure of game and maybe sniff slam. (Ditto with 2H or 2S) However partner may most likely bid 1H, 1S, 1NT, 2C or 2D and each of these alters the value of your hand and therefore what your rebid is:

• 1D - 1H - ? Bid 3H. VG support 15 HCP + 2/3 for the singleton
• 1D - 1S - ? Bid 1NT. 15 - 16 HCP (Not classic, I know...)
• 1D - 1NT - ? PASS. 2D not impossible, nor, oddly, even 2C (partner must have at least 4)
• 1D - 2C - ? Bid 2H. After a 2 level response (10+ HCP) you just about have enough for the game forcing reverse, especially with the Qxx of clubs.
• 1D - 2D - ? Bid 2H. 2H here shows the stopper in the suit and is a gentle nudge towards 3N or 5D if partner is max.
  

OK. Now you can bid. Now you have the picture in your head. Now you are prepared. Although you might like also to think about what happens if the bidding goes:

1D - (2S!) - PASS - (PASS)
??

(Answer: you’ll double and pray partner can pass for penalties!!!)

See you soon, now.

Kit

Opening Hands – A Few Thoughts on the “Rules” – 15 April 2010

Some basic thoughts on “rules” for opening hands. As you all know I’m wary of the concept of rules in general as they have a tendency to stop people thinking things through at the table for themselves. But, that said…

• What to do with a 4441 hand? Simple rule is: Open the suit below the singleton with a red singleton and the middle suit with a black singleton.
  
• When you have a 4432 shape with both majors and 15+HCP, open 1H. If partner responds in a minor suit you will rebid NT.
  
• When you hold a 4432 shape with 15+ HCP and where one of the 4-card suits is a major and the other a minor - use judgement. Personally I like to get the major suit into the auction as soon as possible. On the other hand… if one of your suits is 3578 and the other is AKJx it might tactically work out best to bid the worst suit! Now, if you declare 3NT, they might not know you’re crap in the suit you bid, and then go and lead your other suit away from their Q! This stuff happens …
  
• If you have a 5332 shape with 12 - 14 HCP and where the 5 card suit is a major or a minor open 1NT. The reason is that you are either a) stuck somewhat for a good rebid and b) if partner responds 1NT the stronger hand will now be on the table, making life easier for the opponents. This is a Bad Thing.
  
• If you have 5521/5530 shapes, bid the higher ranking suit first. This is so you have a sound rebid. (I might also bid the 5 card suit major even if I had a 6 card minor for the same reason!)

Big Hands

• All hands that are at least 23+ HCP and balanced should open 2C and then rebid NT. But what if you have a hand of a few HCP less than 23 but you have an unbalanced hand with a big suit? These hands can also be opened 2C. Now the strength lies in the distribution as well as the HCP. What you don't want to happen is for your opening bid at the one level to be passed out and then find you could have made game as partner had 4HCP.
  
• With a balanced 20-22HCP hand open 2NT. Sometimes you might be a bit fixed so don’t worry if the shape isn’t always as perfectly balanced as you’d like it to be (5422 say). Occasionally the “right” bid just isn’t there but you’d better say something!
  
  Opposite a 2NT opening bid partner should respond with as little as 3 HCP. You’re in the game zone so BE there.