Further Bids in Uncontested Auctions
	Responding to an Opening Bid
	Index of Lessons

In this lesson, we will return to the Opener's hand and look at what he might bid after having opened the bidding and heard his partner's first response. Even this early, the direction many auctions will take has become clear. As in the previous lessons, we continue to assume that the opponents have not bid; each one passed in the first round of bidding.

When Your Opening Bid Was 1

There are two different bids Responder might have chosen to your opening 1 .

Your Bid Over a Negative Response to Your Strong Club (1 )

Your partner has told you he has less than 9 points, so now you need to actually describe your hand to your partner. Simply bid your best suit. You can bid Hearts and Spades at the one level, but you will have to go to the two level if your suit is Clubs or Diamonds. Partner knows you have 17+ points, so he will make another bid if he can- unless his hand is a complete bust.

If you have more than 17 points, however, you may want to force partner to bid again. Perhaps you have 22 or 23 points, and can make game even if has only three or four. If you want to force partner to bid again, you must jump. This, you will recall, is making a bid one level higher than you have to. For example, look at this hand:

A K Q 10 9   A Q 3 4   A 4   A 6 23 HCP

All you need from your partner for a Spade game is support for your Spades and perhaps a stray King, although your partner may think you need 7 or 8 points from him. Tell him how strong your hand is and force him to bid one more time by "jumping over" 1 and bidding 2 instead. Take away both Queens, and you should bid just 1 .

Your Bid Over a Positive Response to Your Strong Club (any bid other than 1 )

When you get a positive response to your Strong Club (indicating that partner has 9 point or more), the question of how high you should bid has been answered: you must not stop bidding until a game is reached. But you still need to decide where to play the hand- in Notrump or in a suit. You should begin by simply bidding your best suit as cheaply as possible or, if you have 19-21 points and an even hand, 1 . Partner will then respond to these bids as if they were opening bids- except that he will not pass until a game is reached. If you do bid 1 , remember that your partner may use the Stayman Convention to see if you have a 4-4 major suit fit.

Once a trump suit has been settled on, then, if either of you have hands better than you have promised, there are bids you can make to tell your partner about your additional strength and see if a slam should be investigated. These methods will be discussed in a later lesson.

When Your Opening Bid Was 1 , 1 , 1 or 2

There are two important things to remember in auctions that begin with one of a suit (or 2 , which is the bid we make when we want to show a 13-16 point hand with a Club suit).

First, because we are playing a Strong Club system, Opener has limited his hand to a maximum of 16 points, and we must assume that partner knows this. This will become important shortly.

The second thing to remember is an important rule of bidding. We have touched on it before, but it is now time to discuss it in some detail.

New Suit Forcing

Here, we will not be discussing a particular bid, but rather trying to determine when, during an auction, you are forced to make a bid. Of course, we know that if your partner uses a conventional bid to ask you a question, you must answer it. But are their other cases when you are forced to bid?

(Well, almost all the time, anyway)

When your partner bids a new suit (not Notrump) for the first time in an auction and no upper point count limit for his hand has been established (in Bridge parlance his hand is "unlimited"), then you are required to bid again unless your right-hand opponent has made a call. That is to say, it is your absolute responsibility to ensure that your partner gets another chance to bid. NOTE: This rule does not apply if partner's bid is actually a conventional answer to some question that you have asked him through the bidding process.

This rule is often referred to as "new suit forcing". In the sample auctions below, you are North and the question is whether you are forced to bid or not:

North   East   South   West   1 Pass 1 Pass ?????

You are North, and the question is: Are you forced to bid? With your opening bid, you limited your hand to 16 points maximum. But your partner did not make a bid that limits his point count; all we know is that he has a biddable Spade suit. Since his hand is unlimited (at the moment), and since East did not bid, we are forced to do so.

North   East   South   West   1 Pass 2 Pass ?????

In this case, partner did not bid a new suit; he raised our own. We are not required to bid again. (You may remember that partner will make this bid when he is unsure whether we have game, and suggests to us that if we are at the top of our own range, perhaps 15-16 points, we should bid the game.)

North   East   South   West   1 Pass 1 Pass ?????

Partner has bid Notrump, not a new suit. We are not forced to bid. (Partner has shown us a minimum response where his strength is spread across the suits other than Hearts and no suit of his own to bid. He is warning us that he is short in our suit, but suggesting that if we have a second suit to bid that it will be a better trump fit.)

North   East   South   West   1 Pass 1 2 ?????

In this case, our right-hand opponent has inserted a bid. This means that, regardless of whether we bid again or not, our partner will have another chance to do so. So we are not forced to bid. Interestingly, this allows us to impart more information to our partner. If we pass, we are in effect saying that we have a fairly minimum hand for our bid and with only a biddable Heart suit; we have nothing else interesting to say. If we do bid again, then partner will know that either we have somewhat more than the minimum for our bid, or something else is interesting about our hand. We might bid 2 to show that our Heart suit is longer than the 5 cards we promised, or we might bid 2 to show that in addition to our 5-card Heart suit, we have a biddable Diamond suit (which will, of course, leave room in our hand for very few cards in Spades and Clubs).

Sometimes you can learn a great deal from what your partner doesn't bid or do, so always pay attention. If he could have done something but didn't, there must be a reason, and maybe that reason is important.

North   East   South   West   1 Pass 1 Pass 2 Pass 2 Pass ?????

Partner has bid a new suit for the first time, and he has not limited his hand (although we may infer that he does not have a great deal of points). But his bid is the conventional answer to our bid of 2 , which is the Stayman Convention asking him to bid a 4-card major suit if he has one. We are allowed to pass if the contract is satisfactory or we can bid again if Hearts was not the suit we were looking for.

You willl not always know for sure whether you are forced to bid; when in doubt, though, you should probably do so.

Now that you are familiar with New Suit Forcing, let's see what options Opener has for his second bid.

What if partner passed?

You pass. Next question?  

What if partner raised your suit bid?

We know that partner thinks there might be a game in the suit you opened, because if he didn't, he would have passed. Even if he likes your suit (which we know he does because he raised), because of the way scoring works there is no sense in bidding higher if there is no game. If you bid one in a suit (7 trick contract) and take nine tricks, you get the same number of points as you would if you bid three of a suit (9 trick contract) and made it exactly. Why contract for a harder contract if the payoff is the same? (Why pay retail when you can get it wholesale?). The only time partner would raise is if he thinks there might be a game.

When partner raises to your suit bid one level, he wants you to bid the game if you are at the very top of your range, so with 16 points, do so. When he raises your suit bid two levels, he needs you to have a few more points than the minimum you might have. So, you can bid the game with a good 14 or 15 points.

What if partner bid a new suit but did not raise the bidding level?

We know that partner will usually raise our bid if he has support for our suit. The fact that he did not do so immediately gives us the idea that he does not have that support. With his bid, which will be in a biddable suit as we have defined it, he is telling us where his length and strength are; he is suggesting that his suit be trump instead of the one you bid. How many points does partner have? That is unclear. We know he must have at least seven or he would have passed (or perhaps bid 1 ), but there is no upper limit. Because partner is an unlimited hand, and has bid a new suit, the "New Suit Forcing" rule applies. Your possible actions are:

(1)		With support for partner's suit, raise his bid one level with 13-14 points or two levels with 15-16 points
(2)		With no support for partner's suit, either: Bid another suit if you have one (if you increase the bidding level, you need 15+ points) Rebid your suit if it is longer than 5 cards Bid Notrump (without increasing the bidding level)

What if partner bid a new suit and raised the bidding level?

The one thing we know now but didn't know before is that partner has a minimum of 10 points. So add those points to your own. If you come to 26, then you need to tell partner that game is assured. How can you do this>

(1)		With support for partner's suit, simply bid game in that suit. NOTE: If partner bid Clubs or Diamonds, you need a few extra points above 26 to make game, so be cautious and simply raise his suit to the 4-level. This will be an invitation to him to bid the game if he has a few extra points over the ten he has promised.
(2)		With no support for partner's suit, either: Bid another suit if you have one (This will be a new suit and will force partner to bid again) Jump rebid your suit if it is longer than 5 cards Jump in Notrump

If you cannot add to 26 yet, then make the same bids you would have made if partner had not raised the level of bidding.

What if partner made a jump shift?

Let's say you opened 1 and Responder bid 2 . He bid a new suit and he bid it one level higher than he needed to. He made a jump shift. This is his way of telling you that he has a strong hand, and can count 26 points between your two hands (meaning that since he can only count on you for 13, then he must have at least 13 himself).

Game is assured, and you must not pass until a game is reached. You can support his suit, rebid your own if it is longer than 5 cards, bid a second biddable suit if you have one, or bid Notrump; one of these should fit the shape of your hand.

When Your Opening Bid Was 1

Your rebid, if you opened 1 is pretty easy, because your partner is in control of the auction. Unless he invited you to bid game, asked you whether you have a 4-card major, bid a transfer, or in some other way forced you to bid again, don't. You told partner all about your hand with your opening bid; trust that he will do what is necessary.

So, if partner bid 2 , inviting you to bid game, do so if you have a 18 points. Otherwise, pass.

If partner bid 2 , Stayman, bid 2 if you have a 4-card Spade suit. If you do not, but you do have a 4-card Heart suit, bid 2 . If you have neither, then bid 2 .

If you are playing transfers, which we are in these lessons, then if partner bids any number of Diamonds or Hearts, bid the same number of the next higher-ranking suit. If partner bids any number of Spades, bid Clubs at the next level higher. (Partner will then set the final contract.)

The one other bid partner might make over your 1 opening that forces you to bid again is the Gerber Convention. You are required to answer the question that partner asks you.

Definition: Gerber Convention This convention is used when the partner of an opening Notrump bidder wishes to ensure that the partnership is not missing two Aces when a slam is in the offing. A bid of 4 made directly over an opening Notrump bid asks the opener to disclose how many Aces he holds. Here are the bids that opener can make: If you have either all four Aces or no Aces at all, bid 4 If you have one Ace, bid 4 If you have two Aces, bid 4 If you have three Aces, bid 4 These are the only bids you can make and you must make one of them. Your partner may then set the final contract or, if he is aiming for a grand slam, may want to know how many Kings you hold. He will do this by continuing the Gerber Convention and bidding 5 . Again, here are your responses: If you have either all four Kings or no Kings at all, bid 6 If you have one King, bid 6 If you have two Kings, bid 6 If you have three Kings, bid 6 Again, these are the only bids you can make and you must make one of them. And, again, your partner will set the final contract.

When Your Opening Bid Was Pre-emptive

Rebids here are not clear-cut; they depend on what, if anything your opponents have bid as well as what your partner bid. You will have to use your judgement. Remember that your opening bid told your partner just about everything you had to tell him.

If your left-hand opponent bid, and then your partner raised your suit, then partner has a fit in your suit and is just trying to amplify your pre-empt; he is not trying to get to game (unless, of course, he bids it).

Whether or not the opponents bid, if your partner bids a new suit, which is very unlikely, he is trying to tell you that he has a suit that is even better (usually this means longer), and you should probably pass. This is one of the few times when a new suit bid is not forcing. The situation is different if partner jumps into that new suit; in this case, he has a strong hand and is inviting game somewhere. Either raise his suit, rebid your own, or, if you have some strength in the other two suits, bid Notrump.

You must also respond if your left-hand opponent bids a suit and then partner bids that same suit (a cue-bid). He is showing you a strong hand and is asking you to show him a second suit if you have one. If you don't, then rebid your original suit or bid Notrump.

Final Comments on Opener Rebids

By the time you make your rebid, the direction of the auction should be much clearer. In general, you should stop bidding when you have told your partner all about your hand, unless he makes a bid that forces you to or asks you a question. As soon as you realize that your combined point total is less than 26, stop in the lowest partscore possible. On the other hand, keep bidding until you reach game as soon as you realize you have the points for it.

Remember that with the opening bids available to you, you have often described your hand accurately with one bid or at most two. It is your partner's hand that is an unknown, so listen to his bids and continually try to visualize what his hand looks like.

	Further Bids in Uncontested Auctions
	Responding to an Opening Bid
	Index of Lessons