My partner opened 1 of a minor. What should I be thinking?

We've discussed how to decide which suit to bid first, and how many cards you need to bid. Those were specific requirements. Today, let's consider what you should be thinking after your partner opens the bidding with one in a minor suit. To make things easy, we'll say your partner opened 1 club and your right-hand opponent passed.

Let's start with your easiest decision. If you have less than 6 points (counting distribution) you should pass. It makes no difference if your partner opened 1 club and you are void in clubs. Pass. Your left-hand opponent is not likely to pass out 1 club. Even if she does, your partner might be able to squeeze seven tricks out of the hand. This call doesn't take a lot of thought.

OK, you have 6 or more points. Now, you MUST bid. Your partner's bid is not forcing, but your hand is strong enough that it demands a bid. You might be thinking, "Six points is strong?" Well, no. It isn't, but your partner has at least 13 points and could have more than 20. Your 6 plus partner's 13 gives your side about half of the strength in the deck at a minimum. You want to give your partner another chance to bid.

OK, so you have determined that you are going to bid. Now, what should you be thinking?

First, don't think too hard about supporting your partner's clubs. Partner needs 5 cards to open a major suit, but just 3 to open a minor. Minor suit contracts are worth less than major suit contracts, so give your side a chance to find a major suit fit.

With more than one 4-card suit, you are going to bid them "up the line." That is, bid the cheapest one first. If you have diamonds and spades.  Bid 1 diamond. Now, you may be thinking, "Didn't you just tell me we were trying to find a major suit fit?" Yes, I did, but bidding 1 diamond won't prevent you from finding it. It gives opener room to bid her 4-card major suit (also bidding "up the line") for her rebid. The requirement for opener to have a 5-card major suit is just for the opening bid. If you partner has 4 spades and not 4 hearts, she will bid 1 spade at her next turn. You've found your spade fit. If she has 4 hearts, she will bid 1 heart at her next turn. Then, you can bid your 4-card spade suit in case she has both 4-card majors. So, you see. You still find your 4-4 major suit fit.

Suppose you ignored or forgot my advice and bid 1 spade at your first turn. If partner has 4 spades, no problem, but if she doesn't you may have caused a problem. Suppose she has a 4-card diamond suit and 5 clubs. You'll never find the diamond fit. She presumes that you don't have 4 diamonds because you skipped over them to bid spades. You are likely to end up in no trump when you might have played a comfortable diamond contract.

So, keep this in mind when responding (and rebidding as opener). Since you bid your 4-card suits "up the line," any suit that you skip over implies that you do not hold 4 cards in that suit.

Now, what about hand strength? Your new suit bid doesn't narrow your point range by much. It could be 6 points. It could be 18. That is nothing for you to worry about. Your new suit bid is forcing for one round. Either you or your partner is likely to make a bid on the next round that will narrow the point range for one of the hands.

If you have two suits of unequal length, bid the longer one first. You will still probably be able to find a fit in your 4-card suit if partner doesn't have support for your 5-card suit. Consider some examples:

Opener: 1 club

Responder: (has 5 spades and 4 hearts) 1 spade

Opener: 1 no trump (minimum opening hand, lacks 4 spades)

Responder: 2 hearts 

Opener: "Aha! My partner must have 5 spades and 4 hearts. Otherwise, he would have bid the hearts first. That means I can support his hearts if I have 4, or his spades if I have 3" 

 

Opener: 1 club

Responder: (has 5 hearts and 4 spades) 1 heart

Opener: 1 no trump (minimum opening hand, lacks 4 hearts)

Responder: "Hmm. My partner passed up the chance to bid 1 spade, so she must not have 4 of them. There is no use in my bringing them up. I'm not that crazy about being in no trump. I'll show my partner that I have 5 hearts." 2 hearts.

Opener: "Aha! My partner must have 5 hearts and probably 10-12 points. If he had 13 points, he would have jumped in hearts. I've got 3 hearts to support his 5 hearts. We don't have enough strength for game." Pass 

 

 Suppose your only 4-card suit is clubs. That isn't enough length in clubs to support partner's possible 3-card suit. Bid no trump. 1NT shows 6-9 points. 2NT shows 13-15. 3NT shows 16-18. What about 10-12? Yeah, that one is tricky. Your best bet is to "invent" a diamond suit and bid 1 diamond. Your bid is forcing for one round. Partner might rebid clubs showing 5. She might bid a 4-card major. She might support the diamonds that you don't have. With anything except a club rebid, you can bid no trump at your second turn. Your partner will figure out what you meant...maybe. You could try a limit double raise to 3 clubs, instead. You might end up in a 4-3 club "fit." Not every hand fits nicely into the structure. Sorry about that.

Finally, if you have 5-card support for partner's minor suit, and no 4-card major, you can raise the minor suit. A single raise shows 6-9 points. A double raise shows 10-12.

How to Play a Suit Contract

 Last week I went though how to plan the play of a no trump contract when you are declarer. This week we will look at a suit contract. When planning a no trump hand, we started by counting winners--tricks that we could take right off the top. When planning the play of a suit contract, we count losers. The reason for the difference is that in a no trump contract, no one can take your winners away from you. You can cash them in whenever you want. In a suit contract, you need to be concerned about the opponents trumping your winners. Let's look at a hand.

South opens with 1 heart. North responds 2 hearts, showing 6-9 points with adequate trump support. South adds her 19 points to North's minimum 6 and comes up 1 point shy of game. I wouldn't criticize South for just bidding game, but this South player is not that aggressive. She invites game with 3 hearts. North is on the top of the range for his bid, so he accepts the invitation and bids 4 hearts.

The opening lead is the 2 of diamonds.

Now, declarer looks at her hand. It is important to count losers from the viewpoint of the hand that has the longest trump holding. That is usually the declarer's hand. We start by looking at the trump suit. We expect to need 3 rounds to pull the 5 outstanding trumps. They might break 4-1, but they will break 3-2 more often. We should expect to lose at most one trump. If the queen is in the East hand, we won't lose any. Now, we go on to the side suits.

There are no losers in spades. There might be a loser in diamonds. If the queen of diamonds is in the West hand, we can finesse and avoid that loser. Clubs are a problem. It looks like 3 losers in clubs.

OK, let's assess. We can afford to lose 3 tricks. There might be 1 in hearts, 1 in diamonds, and 3 in clubs. What is the plan for losing 2 fewer tricks? There are the two queen finesses. If they both work, we are done, but that will only happen 1 out of 4 times. Still, it might work. 

What is the backup plan? Can we ruff a losing club in dummy? Not likely. We would need to do that before pulling 3 rounds of trumps and after playing 3 rounds of clubs. That plan is too risky.

We have two 7-card side suits. If either of those break 3-3, we will have an extra winner with the 4th card in that suit. That's an extra chance.

Let's stop to think about the first trick. If West was leading away from the queen of diamonds, we could try the finesse right off the bat by playing the jack on the first trick. That's a possibility. Suppose we just duck on the board and play the 6. If East holds both the 10 and Q, he will play the 10. If he holds the Q without the 10 he will probably play the Q. If he holds just the 10, he will play the 10. Either way, we take the ace. If he holds neither, he plays small and we take the first trick with the 9. No matter what happens, we lose at most one diamond and set up an extra winner in the dummy. I like that idea.

In this case, East held the queen, but not the 10. He plays "third hand high" and plays the queen. Declarer takes the ace, and there are no losers in diamonds. We have a good chance of getting an extra diamond winner on the board if the 10 falls after cashing the K and J. One loser erased. An extra winner is probable.

Now, we need to decide when to pull trump. The rule is that you should pull trump right away unless there is a good reason not to. A good reason not to might be to ruff a loser in dummy before dummy runs out of trumps. There are a few other reasons, but that is the most common one. That reason doesn't apply now, so we are going to pull trumps. We want to finesse for the queen, so we'll need to get to the board. Since declarer holds both the AK, let's pull one round of trump right away with the ace. Who knows? Maybe an opponent holds the singleton queen. We'll still lose a trump trick if that happens, but it makes the play easier.

Both opponents follow suit with small trumps. Now, we prepare for the heart finesse. Lead to the ace of spades. You would be very unlucky if this trick gets trumped. It would mean that one opponent held all 9 of the outstanding spades.

At this point, many beginners would think, "Hey, I can trump some spades, now!" Don't do it. You are going to win tricks with the small trumps in your hand no matter what. Trumping the dummy's losers doesn't gain you anything. It can cause harm, though. If you run into a bad trump break, you may not have enough trumps left in your hand to pull the opponents' trumps. We are going to stick with the plan. Lead a small heart intending to play the jack unless East comes up with the queen. He doesn't. He plays a small heart. You play the jack from your hand, and West plays the queen. Bummer.

West returns a small spade. You play a small spade from the board, and East comes up with the king. I just told you not to trump in the long hand. Here, you can afford it. There is only one trump out in the opponents' hands, and you want to eliminate it. You have 3 trumps left in your hand. This isn't dangerous. Go ahead and trump the spade. If you were still worried about pulling trump, you might choose to discard one of your losing clubs on this trick. The opponents will continue leading spades and you'll start to worry about them ruffing in on a spade. It could get painful for you.

OK, you have taken the spade return with a trump in your hand, and there is still one trump out. You pull it with the king and discard a club from the board.

Let's reassess. You've only lost 1 trick, and you can afford to lose 2 more. You've still got 3 club losers in your hand. We'd like to set up the 8 of diamonds in dummy. One possibility is that the 10 will fall after playing two more rounds of diamonds. That would happen if the diamonds break 3-3 or that they break 4-2 with the 10 being with the doubleton. If you just want to play for that, I can't blame you. However, we can use some information from the first trick to be almost guaranteed to take 4 diamond tricks.

Remember that East played the queen on the first trick. If he held both the 10 and the queen, he would have saved the queen and played the 10 on the first trick. The jack is in dummy, so he knows the 10 won't be taken with anything less than the ace. He didn't play the 10, though. He played the queen. Therefore, West must hold the 10. Not only that, West's opening lead of the 2 suggests that she started with 4 cards in diamonds. The 2 would be a 4th highest lead. She would also lead the 2 from a10-x-2 tripleton, but in any case, she is marked with the 10. If she started with 4 cards to the 10, you would be sorry if you played for it to drop.

So, we lead the 9. If East covers with the 10, we take with the jack and the 8 is a good trick, now. If East ducks, we count on West making the logical play on trick 1 and duck on the board. We expect our 9 to win. Now, lead the 3 of diamonds and repeat the finesse. If West ducks again, you play the 8 from the board. In any case, you end up on the board with an extra winner in diamonds that you can play while you discard a losing club.

Next, you lead to your ace of clubs and happily lose 2 more club tricks. Contract made.

How to Play a No Trump Hand

 In today's post, we are going to look at how to plan the play as declarer in a no trump contract. Let's start with this sample hand

North

South

North opened the bidding with 1 spade. South responded 1 no trump, because his hand is too weak to bid a new suit at the 2 level. North continues with 2 clubs. Now, South is free to mention one of his suits at the 2 level. There is an argument for bidding either 2 diamonds or 2 hearts. South is not expecting to bid again. South bids 2 diamonds, and North continues with 2 no trump. Since North has not promised anything stronger than a minimum opening bid, South passes.

The opening lead was the 9 of hearts. Now, as declarer, before you play a single card, you should stop to think about how you are going to make your contract. When planning the play for a no trump contract, the first thing you should do is count how many tricks you can take off the top. Now and then, it will be enough to make your contract, but usually not.

OK, if we just run our winners, we take 2 tricks in hearts, 1 in spades, and 1 in clubs. That's 4 tricks. We need 8 tricks to make 2 NT. Where are we going to find 4 more tricks? If you can get to your hand twice, you might get an extra trick out of clubs with a finesse. Maybe, maybe not.

The diamonds look much more promising. Once you knock out the ace, you'll be able to take 3 more tricks with the remaining honor cards. That get's us to 7. Where is the 8th trick?

You've got 7 cards in diamonds. If the remaining 6 diamonds break no worse than 4-2 the diamonds will be gone by the time you knock out the ace and take the high cards. Then, you'll be able to take 1 more trick with the remaining small diamond. That's all you need, and it looks promising. You'll know if it works before you run out of high cards. Suppose the diamonds break 5-1 or 6-0. Well, that sucks. Now you need to look somewhere else for your 8th trick.

Now, we can try the club finesse. You are already in your hand with the diamonds. If you still have the ace of hearts, you can finesse twice by playing a small card to the ten. As long as both the king and jack are not held by East, you will take an extra trick in clubs.

If a heart was returned after the opponents took the ace of diamonds, you will only have one chance to finesse the clubs. Lead to the queen and hope that West holds the king.

That's a pretty good plan. You will need to be very unlucky for everything to go against you. Now that you have a plan, you can play the king of hearts from dummy. You'll follow that up by leading the king of diamonds. 

Why not lead a small diamond? Think about what happens if an opponent hops up with the ace on the first trick. That opponent leads back a heart that you take with the ace. Now, you lead a diamond to the king on the board, and you can't get back to your hand to cash in the rest of your diamonds. Bummer!

Forcing Bids

 Nothing can be as frustrating in bridge as having your forcing bid passed by your partner. You don't want to frustrate your partner, so let's make sure we understand forcing bids.

First of all, there are two kinds of forcing bids. There are bids that are forcing for one round. That simply means that you need to keep the bidding open so your partner can bid again--once. The second type of forcing bid is a bid that is forcing to game. If your partner makes one of these, you must both keep the bidding open until a game contract is reached or the opponents are doubled for penalties. Let's look at each type.

Forcing for One Round

The most common bid that is forcing for one round is a new suit by responder. It makes no difference whether you opened with 1 of a suit, a weak two, or a preempt at the three level. If your partner bids a new suit, you must keep the bidding open for one round. New suits by responder continue to be forcing for one round with each new suit that responder mentions. Just because the bid is forcing, it doesn't imply that responder is strong. He just wants to have another chance to speak. Here are some examples:

Opener: 1 club

Responder: 1 heart

Opener: must bid again

Opener: 1 club

Responder: 1 heart

Opener: 2 clubs (opener had to bid something here)

Responder: 2 spades (That's another new suit)

Opener: must bid again 

Opener:  2 hearts

Responder: 2 spades

Opener: must bid again

What about a NT opener? Without interference, all suit bids by responder are conventional. 2C is Stayman. 2D, 2H, 2S are all Jacoby transfers. Conventional bids are, of course, forcing. They are artificial and ask the opener to do something specific. There are also the 3C and 3D responses to a 1NT opener. Those bids are natural and invitational to 3NT. They are not forcing.

If there is interference over the 1NT opener, Jacoby transfers are off. In that case, suit responses are natural and not forcing. So how do you distinguish these from the new-suit-by-responder-is-forcing-for-one round rule? Think of the new-suit rule as being a new suit after a suit opener. Over no trump, it isn't a new suit. It is the first suit. Maybe that is more confusing. Sorry about that, but natural suit responses to no trump openers are not forcing. 

Game Forcing Bids

Game forcing bids usually occur when the responder has an opening hand opposite his partner's opening bid. There aren't many immediate responses that are forcing to game. Double raises are limit bids, and new suits are forcing for just one round. A 2NT response is forcing to game after an opening one-of-a-suit bid. Opposite a major suit opener, 2NT is conventional--known as Jacoby 2NT. We'll get to that eventually. Opposite a minor suit opener, 2NT shows 13 points and no 4-card major suit. Both are forcing to game. Both players must keep the bidding open until a game contract is reached or the opponents are doubled for penalties.

The other immediate response that is forcing to game is a jump shift. That means bidding a new suit at one level higher than necessary. An example is 1C-2H. The jump shift shows 19+ points. It is forcing to game and a strong invitation to slam.

There are some other game forces that come up later in the bidding. If responder jumps in a suit already bid at his second turn to bid or in NT, it shows a 13+ point hand, and is forcing to game. For example:

Opener: 1 club

Responder: 1 heart

Opener: 1 spade

Responder: 3 spades

Responder is showing 4 card support for spades and at least 13 points. Opener isn't promising any additional strength with her rebid, so she could have just 13. Responder's 13 points gives the team enough for game.

Here is another example:

Opener: 1 club

Responder: 1 heart

Opener: 1 spade

Responder: 3 hearts

Responder is promising a 5 card heart suit and the bid is forcing to game.

One more example:

Opener: 1 club

Responder: 1 heart

Opener: 1 spade

Responder: 2 no trump

Responder is saying he has 13+ points, but doesn't have 4 spades to support the opener, and doesn't have the 5 hearts required to rebid his suit.

Conventional Bids

All conventional bids have an artificial meaning. The bidder certainly doesn't want to be left there. For example:

Opener: 1 no trump

Responder: 2 hearts (Jacoby transfer. Responder has spades, not hearts)

Opener: pass

Responder: YOU CAN'T PASS. THAT'S A JACOBY TRANSFER!!!!

OK, that was a joke. The opener will bid 2 spades automatically.

Another conventional bid that is forcing for one round is the takeout double. I'll cover this in more detail in another post, but let's touch on it, now. I'll use seat directions to clarify who is speaking.

South: 1 club

West: double (That's a takeout double. West does not want to defend against 1 club for penalties)

North: pass

East: must bid something, even with zero points. The only time he can pass is in the unusual circumstance that he has a hand so strong that he thinks your side can defeat a 1 club contract. I can hardly ever remember this happening. You can forget it if you like. Just bid something!

Now, there is the opening 2 club bid that is reserved for all super strong opening hands. This bid alone is almost forcing to game. If the responder makes a positive response (anything other than 2D), the team is forced to game. Even when the responder makes the negative response of 2D (showing less than 8 points) the bidding is forcing to one trick short of game. That's a little tricky to remember, so watch out for it. Consider some examples.

Opener: 2C (22+ points)

Responder: 2D (<8 points)

Opener: 2H (forcing to at least 3H, shows a 5 card suit)

Responder: 3H (3 card support for hearts, not sure if the team has 26 points, even after opener promised 22)

Opener: Might still bid 4H if she has all 10 tricks in her hand and knowing that partner has trump support. Or, she might pass if just a couple of points from partner are not enough.

Opener: 2C (22+ points)

Responder: 2D (<8 points)

Opener: 2NT (This is part of the no trump structure. It shows 22-24 HCP and no trump distribution.)

Responder: (Adds his points to opener's. Jacoby and Stayman are available, if useful. If the total comes to less than 26, responder can pass.)

Opener: 2C (22+ points)

Responder: 2H (8+ points, 5 card heart suit)

No matter what. These two players will continue bidding until a game contract is reached. Slam is a possibility. There is no rush. Neither player needs to worry about getting passed in a part score.

When are relieved of your obligation to bid

If your partner makes a forcing bid and your right-hand opponent sticks in his oar with a bid, or even a double, you may pass if you want. The interfering bid will keep the bidding open for your partner. You may still bid, if you want, but you are showing additional strength. Here are two examples. I am using seat directions to clarify who is speaking

South: 1 club

West: pass

North: 1 heart (new suit by responder, forcing for one round)

East: 1 spade

South: 2 clubs (No longer obligated to bid, but choosing to bid anyway shows extra strength over the 13 points required to open.)

South: 1 club

West: double (for takeout, East is forced to bid, unless...)

North: 1 diamond

East: Now, east can pass. If he chooses to bid it shows a little bit of strength.