Responding to the Opening Bid
	An Introduction to the Bidding Process
	Index of Lessons

In this lesson, we will look at Opening bids.

Definition: Opening Bid In an auction (the bidding phase) the first call, other than "Pass" made by one of the players.

When you decide to open the bidding, you should do so with the one bid that describes your hand more accurately than any other. There will often be more than one bid you could make, but usually we can identify the one bid you should make.

When Should You Open the Bidding?

Simply put, you should open the bidding whenever you have a hand that justifies a bid. I know that isn't very helpful just yet, but it will become clearer when we get into the discussion.

There are, basically, two kinds of hands that justify an opening bid. The first are those hands that contain lots of points- or at least more than average.

When you value your hand (see the previous lesson on Hand Valuation), and find that you have 13 points or more, then you should open the bidding. There are situations where you can open with fewer points, but you should always open with 13 or more.

Obviously, the question of the hour is which opening bid you should choose. Let's take a look at the various opening bids that are available to you. In this discussion, we will introduce the concept of a "biddable suit" and so we should know what that is.

Definition: Biddable Suit A biddable suit is any 5-card or longer suit, as well as any 4-card suit that is headed by a King or better. For example, a suit that consists of the 9, 8, 7, 6 and 5 is biddable. A suit that consists of the Ace, 10, 5 and 4 is also biddable. But a suit consisting of only the Queen, 7, 6 and 5 is not biddable. This concept applies most often to the opening bid, although it has other applications as well in certain auctions.

There are many systemic approaches to Bridge bidding, some of them quite involved and only played by a relatively few people. Other strategies are simpler and more widely accepted and played. We will follow two of those strategies in these lessons on bidding (although you might eventually play against opponents that use a different one). A few of these strategies will be mentioned in this lesson on opening bids.

Opening 1 or 1

Definition: Five-card Major Openings One bidding strategy we will use in these lessons is in very wide use; relatively few players use anything else. In this bidding style, we forbid the Opener from bidding 1 or 1 unless the suit has at least five cards. Heart and Spade contracts are played quite frequently, and this strategy has been shown to enable players to bid these contracts more easily and with more confidence.

Among the most common opening bids are these two, and each of them means the same thing. Each describes a hand with the following characteristics:

	(1)	The hand is worth between 13-16 points (no more, no less)
	(2)	The hand contains at least five cards in the named suit
	(3)	No suit in the hand contains more cards than the named suit

If you have a 13-16 point hand that has both five Hearts and five Spades, bid 1 , planning to bid Hearts next if appropriate and if you have the opportunity to do so.

All of the following hands should be opened with 1 :

A Q J 8 7   Q 3 4   K J 3   4 3

Q J 10 8 7 2   A K 4   K 5 4   K

J 10 9 8 7   A K   A   J 8 7 6 5

K 9 8 7 6 5 3 2   A   A 5 4 3

A K 5 4 2   A K 7 6 5   5 4   10

On the other hand, none of the following hands should be opened with 1 :

A J 9 8 7   Q 3 4   K J 3   4 3 The hand contains only 12 points. Pass instead.

Q J 10 8 7 2   A K 4   K 5 4   A The hand contains too many points. Find a stronger opening bid (discussed later).

J 10 9 8 7   A   A   9 8 7 6 5 4 You have a suit with more cards than the Spade suit. Open your longer suit.

K 9 8 7 6 5 3 2   A   A Q J 3     You have too many points (19). Open with a stronger bid (discussed later).

8 6 5 4 2   A K Q J 5   A 4   10 This is a rare case. Since your Heart suit is so very much stronger than your Spade suit, we will bid it first, even though we would usually bid Spades when the Spades and Hearts are equal in length.

Opening 1

This is another common opening bid; but it is unusual in that it should be made on two different kinds of hands.

The first type of hand is one where you actually have a biddable Diamond suit. Here are the characteristics of the first hand type with which you should make the bid:

	(1)	The hand is worth between 13-16 points (no more, no less)
	(2)	The Diamond suit is biddable (see the definition above)
	(3)	The hand does not contain either a 5-card Heart suit or a 5-card Spade suit

The other type of hand on which you might open 1 is a hand that, while it does have enough points to be opened, it does not contain a biddable Diamond suit. In this type of hand, there is no other convenient bid that can be made (which would not mislead partner). The characteristics of this hand are:

	(1)	The hand is worth between 13-16 points (no more, no less)
	(2)	The Diamond suit is either too short or too weak to be biddable (see the definition above)
	(3)	The hand does not contain either a 5-card Heart suit, a 5-card Spade suit or a 6-card Club suit

All of the following hands should be opened with 1 :

A 8 7   Q 3 4   A K J 3 2   4 3

Q J 10 8   A J 8 4   K 5 4   K 3

K 10 9   A K   A 5 4   9 8 7 6 5

K 9 8   A 6 5 4   A 5 4   K 8 7

A K   A K   9 8 7 6 5 4   10 7 6

The first and last hands have biddable Diamond suits, but the middle three do not. But in those three cases, no other bid can be made. In the second and fourth examples, you do have nicer Heart or Spade suits (or both), but since we are playing Five-Card Majors, we cannot open the bidding in these suits, as they are not five cards long. In the third example, we do have a biddable Club suit, but we cannot open the bidding with 1 . Why is this? If the club suit is biddable, why can't we open it? The answer will get us a bit ahead of ourselves, but if you are curious right now, that answer is that the opening bid of 1 has a special meaning that we will discuss in a moment. So we are stuck. We definitely need to make a bid because each hand is much better than average, and so the solution is to bid 1 . But how will partner know which kind of hand we have? How will he know whether we actually have a biddable Diamond suit or not? The answer is that since he knows we are playing Five-Card Majors, he will know that we might be using the opening bid of 1 to describe a hand that, while it has sufficient points to be opened, offered us no good opening bid other than 1 , and he will not count on us for a biddable diamond suit until we bid them again- if that becomes appropriate.

Opening 1 (or 2 or 3 )

This is another common opening bid, and it (they) describe a particular kind of hand. Here are the requirements that your hand must have for you to open with one of these bids:

If you decide to open with a Notrump bid, you must first subtract from your hand's valuation any extra points that you added for voids, singletons (1-card suits) and/or doubletons (2-card suits). Since there will be no trump suit, short suits have no value; you won't be relying on them to enable you to trump your losing cards.

	(1)	For 1 , the hand must contain 16, 17, or 18 HCP For 2 , the hand must contain 22, 23 or 24 HCP For 3 , the hand must contain 25, 26 or 27 HCP Note: Even hands with 19-21 points will be discussed later
	(2)	The hand must not contain a five-card (or longer) major suit headed by the J-10 or better
	(3)	The hand must not contain a void (a suit in which you have no cards) or a singleton (a suit in which you have only one card)
	(4)	The hand must not have more than one doubleton (a suit in which you have just two cards), and if it does contain a doubleton, one of the two cards must be either an Ace or King
	(5)	For 1 , at least three of the suits must be securely "stopped". That is, the suit must contain either (1) the Ace, or (2) both the King and Queen, or (3) the King, Jack, and 10, or (4) the Queen, Jack and 10. For opening bids of 2 and 3 , all four suits must be securely stopped.

As you can see, these guidelines are very precise, but being so specific as to the characteristics of your hand will enable your partner to take control of the auction and set the final contract. Auctions that are opened with a Notrump bid are the easiest and often the shortest- mostly because the Opener is so precise. Here are some hands on which you would open in Notrump:

A J 8 7   K Q 3   A J 2   K 4 3 (One Notrump)

A Q 10 8   A K 8 4   A J 4   A 3 (Two Notrump)

K J 10   A K 3   A K 4   9 8 7 6 (One Notrump)

A K 8   A Q 5 4   A Q 4   A K 8 (Three Notrump)

A 4 3 2   A 3 2   A 5 4 3   A 10 (One Notrump)

See if you can figure out why none of the hands below should be opened with a Notrump bid:

A J 8 7   K Q 3   A Q J 2   Q 4

A Q 10 9 8   A K 8   A J 4   A 3

A K J 10   A K 6 3   A   A K 7 6

A J 9 8   A Q 5 4      A J 10 9 8

A 4   A 3   A 9 5 4 3   A 10 9 8

Answers:
The first hand has 19 HCP- too many points for 1 and too few for 2
The second hand has a 5-card major headed by the J-10 or better
The third hand has a singleton
The fourth hand has a void
The fifth hand has two doubletons

If you are curious as to what bid you would use to open these hands (and each one must be opened), let us first discuss the opening bid of 1 and then we will return to these five hands.

Opening 1 (AKA: The Strong Club)

For many years, Bridge players have sought ways to open and then bid hands that are very, very strong. If such hands fit the Notrump model, it's easy, but if they don't, it can be hard to get to a slam if there is one. One key element seemed to be informing partner as early as possible that your hand is very strong, so for many years, this was done with what was called a "Strong Two" opening bid. Bidders were taught to open strong or unbalanced hands with bids of 2 , 2 , 2 or 2 , depending on which suit was the longest and strongest.

The problem with this approach was that it chewed up too much bidding room too quickly and, particularly if the opponents stuck in a nuisance bid, made it difficult for the partnership with the preponderance of the power to find their best spot (and, most particularly, stay out of slam contracts that cannot be made). So, over the years, a number of other systems, including the one we will use here, were developed. The "Strong Club" works at least as well as any other competing style, and better than most of them.

Before we look at it, we need another definition.

Definition: Conventional Bid/Bidding Convention A conventional bid is a bid that does not mean what it sounds like (proposing a contract at a particular level and with a particular trump suit). There are quite a few of these conventional bids, some of which are very useful and played by almost everyone, and some so arcane that they confuse even the players who use them. A conventional bid is a bid to which a particular meaning has been assigned, quite apart from its level or the suit it names.

Now we can look at our first conventional bid.

Definition: The Strong Club (with thanks to Howard Schenken, who popularized it) When you open the bidding with 1 , you are telling your partner one specific thing: you have picked up a hand that is worth 17 points or more (HCP). This bid says nothing whatsoever about your Club suit; in fact, you may be void in them. Nor does it promise or deny any other suit. All it says to your partner is that you hold 17 points or more.

Well, that's pretty simple. All strong hands (17+ points) are opened with 1 . This rule is so ironclad that there are only three exceptions (grin).

There are only three exceptions to the "Strong Club" rule. Those three exceptions are the cases in which you decide to open either 1  (16-18 points), 2  (22-24 points), or 3  (25-27 points).

Now we know how to bid certain hands that we have already looked at. Back when we were talking about opening 1 or 1 , we came across these two hands in our examples:

Q J 10 8 7 2   A K 4   K 5 4   A The hand contains too many (19) points. Find a stronger opening bid (discussed later).

K 9 8 7 6 5 3 2   A   A Q J 3     You have too many points (19). Open with a stronger bid (discussed later).

Well, "later" has arrived. Now you know to open both of these hands with 1 . In the first hand, while we had 19 points counting the singleton's 2 points, we subtract these when considering the requirement for a 1 opening. We still have 17 HCP, and so should open 1 .

The second hand is more interesting. When we subtract the five distribution points we added (2 for the singleton and 3 for the void), we are left with only 14 HCP, and really shouldn't lie to our partner and promise 17 HCP. It is reasonable to simply open 1 . If your partner doesn't have enough points to respond, you have probably not missed a game.

But this hand begins to illustrate the problems with extremely unbalanced hands, hands that have 7-card or longer suits. When your best suit gets this long, point count starts to mean less than usual. The longer the suit gets, the less the actual point count matters- but the more that judgment does. Look at it this way: if you held all 13 spades, you obviously have a Grand Slam (all 13 tricks) if spades are trump, even though a Grand Slam usually requires 37 points between you and your partner!

A fairly decent general guideline to follow is that when you have an 8-card or longer suit, treat your distribution points as if they were HCP and bid accordingly. So we would open this hand with 1 .

We can also now fill the hole we left in our Notrump bidding. Earlier, we had this rule for the point ranges for opening Notrump bids:

(1)

For 1 , the hand must contain 16, 17, or 18 HCP For 2 , the hand must contain 22, 23 or 24 HCP For 3 , the hand must contain 25, 26 or 27 HCP Note: Even hands with 19-21 points will be discussed later

Once again, "later" has arrived. If you pick up a hand that satisfies all the requirements for a Notrump opening bid, except that it has 19, 20 or 21 points, open it with a bid of 1 . At your next turn to bid (trust me once again when I tell you that you will get another turn) you can bid in Notrump, and your partner will know that your hand fell into that three-point "doughnut hole", and that you have an even hand with 19-21 points.

Finally, we can also determine how to open the five hands we discussed above in the section on Notrump. Here they are again:

A J 8 7   K Q 3   A Q J 2   Q 4

A Q 10 9 8   A K 8   A J 4   A 3

A K J 10   A K 6 3   A   A K 7 6

A J 9 8   A Q 5 4      A J 10 9 8

A 4   A 3   A 9 5 4 3   A 10 9 8

Recall that to open a hand in Notrump, you not only need the required number of points, but you must also have each suit "stopped", or not have a void, or not have more than one doubleton. All five of the above hands violate one of those rules, and so none of them can be opened with a Notrump bid. Now we know what to do with them. The first three have enough HCP so that they should be opened with 1 to announce their strength. The fifth hand has only 16 HCP, and so it cannot be opened with 1 . It will be opened with 1 , since the diamond suit is biddable.

What about the fourth hand? It has 16 HCP and 3 distribution points, but we aren't supposed to count distribution points when considering a 1 opening. You have two choices here. First, you can pretend to have mis-counted and open 1 anyway. You hand is very strong and this should not get you in trouble. But for newbies, I think it is best to stick to the rules. Clubs is your best suit, but how to tell partner, since opening 1 breaks the rules? Keep reading to find out!

An Opening Hand (But Not a Strong One) With a Club Suit

Playing the Strong Club solves many of our bidding problems, but sadly, it has in turn created one. The new problem is that we cannot now use an opening bid of 1  to show partner a hand with 13-16 points and a biddable club suit, for that bid now simply means 17+ points and says nothing about the Club suit. So what do we do with a hand like this one:

Q 9 8   A 4   Q 10   A K 8 4 3 2

Here we have 15 points, so we need to make an opening bid. Obviously, our only biddable suit is Clubs- and it is a pretty nice suit at that. One we certainly want to tell our partner about. We can't open 1 because that would mean we have a boatload of points (at least 17), so what do we do? The answer is that we open 2 . Since we are playing a Strong Club system, partner will know that our opening bid means just what we intend- we have a hand with enough points to open but no suit other than clubs to suggest as trump. The fourth had from the group above should also be opened with 2 .

Problem solved.

Final Opening Bids: Pre-Emptive Bids

There is one final group of opening bids, and these are the only bids that do not require 13 or more points to make. In fact, you should never open with any of these bids if you have as many points as that; you should make one of the normal bids we've already talked about.

As we have said, there are two ways your partnership can earn points. You can bid and make your own contracts, or you can keep your opponents from bidding and making theirs. If your opponents have enough points, and if we assume they are as knowledgeable about bidding as you are, then you can see that they will eventually find their optimum contract. All they need is time- and no interference from you. But as is true in other areas of life, it is when we are rushed, it is when we don't take the time, or have the time, to think things through, that we make our mistakes. So if you can find a way to "rush" your opponents, or reduce the amount of time they have to find their contract, there is a chance they will make a mistake and bid the wrong thing or not bid high enough. That is where preemptive bids come in.

Definition: A Pre-emptive Bid A pre-emptive bid is a bid made by one team member that is not designed to arrive at that team's optimum contract, but is intended instead to obstruct the opposing team as they try to find theirs. It is a bid made not in hopes of winning the auction, but in hopes of taking away the opponents' bidding room- the time they need to exchange information in order to find their own optimum contract.

Pre-emptive bids can be made throughout an auction, but at the moment we will concern ourselves with opening pre-empts.

Take a look at this hand:

K Q J 9 8 7   8 7   J 10 3   4 3

Let's say that you pick up this hand and are either the first to bid or the second to bid, your right-had opponent having passed. What can you say about your hand? You only have six points, so the other 34 are in the hands of your opponents and your partner. If those points are split evenly, the opponents have more points than your team, and could probably outbid you. They may even have enough points to bid and make a game.

But just with your six points, you could still take five tricks- but only if Spades becomes the trump suit. (If Spades are not trump, your hand is worth, at most, a single trick.) Spades will only become trump if you bid, and tell your partner about the shape of your hand. For these reasons, and with the added benefit that you will deprive the opponents of two full rounds of bidding room, this is an excellent hand for a pre-emptive bid, and you should open 2 .

What will this bid achieve? Surely, you don't expect to make that contract; partner would have to contribute three tricks outside of the Spade suit or the Ace of Spades and two other tricks, for you to make your contract. But that is not your purpose with the bid; your main purpose is to take away bidding room from the opponents who, on average, will have the majority of the points. If you do bid 2 , then the first chance the opponents will have to bid a suit of their own is at the three level, and this has its own dangers, for unless one of your opponents has a suit even better than yours, there is aleady a good chance that even the three level will be too high.

That is why these bids are called "pre-emptive"; you are pre-empting the opponents' bidding room, with relatively little downside risk. Obviously, pre-empts must only be made with excellent suits so that, if the opponents let you play the contract, you will not be in danger of coming up short by more than two or three tricks, even if your partner has nothing. And if your partner does have nothing, it means your opponents have a game or slam, and they would be foolish to let you steal the contract; while they would get some points if you fail to make your contract, they would get far more points by bidding and making their own.

A good rule of thumb is that when you make a pre-emptive bid, you should be within three tricks of your contract even if your partner has nothing. Here, you can take five tricks all by yourself, and so you can bid to take eight tricks (a bid at the two-level).

K Q J 9 8 7 5   8 7   J 10   4 3 Hand One

K Q J 9 8 7 5 4   8   J 10   4 3 Hand Two

If your suit was longer, as in Hand One at left, you would be able to take six tricks all by yourself with Spades as trump, and thus you could bid to take nine tricks- a bid at the three level. Open this hand 3 . And if your suit were stronger still, as in Hand Two, where you can take seven tricks all by yourself, you could open 4 . Incidentally, in Hand One, if you take away one of the little spades and add an Ace in one of your other suits, your trick-taking potential would be the same, and you should open with the same bid.

While making a pre-emptive bid also takes away bidding room from your own team, these bids are descriptive enough that your partner, if he has a great many points, can pretty easily determine where the final contract should be and simply bid it. Let's look at an example:

K Q J 9 8 7 5   8 7   J 10   4 3 Your Hand

3   A 10 3 2   A K 7 4   K Q 10 4 Partner's Hand

What will your partner do if he hears you open the bidding with 3 ? Well, the one thing he will not do is try to find a better trump suit. Even though he only has a singleton, he knows you have a very good suit, and that trumps will not be a problem. Looking at his other cards, he sees that he has four tricks for you- the Heart Ace, the Diamond Ace and King and, after the Club Ace is forced out, the Club Queen. Since knows you must be within three tricks of the contract you bid, he knows you expect to take six tricks. Since he has four for you, that's a total of ten- and a game in Spades (a contract of
4 ) is almost assured. He will raise your bid to 4 in order to get the sizeable game bonus.

On the other hand, if he has fewer tricks for you, he will simply pass. You may fall short of your contract by three tricks, but if that happens, the opponents probably had a game of their own, and will earn fewer points letting you fail than if they outbid you to their own game.

So, as long as you follow the guidelines for pre-emptive bids, you will find that making them has great upside potential, with relatively little downside risk.

	Responding to the Opening Bid
	An Introduction to the Bidding Process
	Index of Lessons