Some Bidding Examples
	Further Bidding in Uncontested Auctions
	Index of Lessons

In this lesson, we'll take a look at some of the bids available to you when one of your opponents has opened the bidding. What you bid will, of course, depend a lot on what the opponents have bid, as well as whether you are the second or fourth person to bid in the auction.

Your Right-Hand Opponent Opened the Bidding

The first thing to keep in mind when your right-hand opponent opens the bidding is that you now know where some of the 40 points in the deck are located. This knowledge will have quite an effect on your own bidding.

Your Right-Hand Opponent Opened 1

Right away, you know that half the points in the deck are located to your right. Given a random distribution of the remaining high cards, it is extremely unlikely that you and your partner hold the other half, or even enough to make a partscore. We will assume, then, that most likely you will pass. Only if Opener's partner gives a negative response to the Strong Club and Opener then stops in a partscore at the one level might you consider getting into the auction when it is again your turn. And if you do, you will need a very long, very strong trump suit with at least a good opening hand point-wise.

Your Right-Hand Opponent Opened 1 , 1 , 1 or 2

With any of these bids to your right, you know that for you and your partner to make a game, you would need nearly all the missing points between you. But you may well have enough points to make a part score, particularly if your trump suit is higher in rank than the Opener's.

So, if you have a good biddable suit that outranks the Opener's and perhaps 10-12 points, you can overcall- bid that suit at the same level. If you have to go up one level to bid your suit, you will need a few extra points- perhaps 14-15 or so. The number of points you need depends largely on how long and how strong is the suit you are bidding (the longer and stronger it is the fewer and fewer actual points you need, although the minimum would probably be about 9, with most of them in the suit you bid). If you do not have a suit to bid, you should probably just pass, even if you have an opening hand. Perhaps the opponents will get too high and go set, or perhaps they will stop at a low level, allowing you to reopen the bidding just to see what partner has. Here is a typical hand were you might bid 1 over Opener's 1 :

A Q J 8 7 2   Q 3   A 4 3   9 8

Be careful with hands where lots of the points are in scattered Queens and Jacks (unless they are in the suit you bid); for a good overcall, you need more Aces and Kings. Also, strength you have in the suit the Opener bid may be wasted if you get the contract- unless it is an Ace, of course. Having strength in the Opener's suit would be helpful, though, if they get the contract in that suit. Since the play rotates clockwise, you will get to play after the player on your right who bid the suit, and who, presumably, has the other high cards in it. His finesses will fail.

Take a look at this hand, where we again assume that the Opener on your right bid 1 :

K Q 7 2   K J 3   A 4 3   K 9 8

Here, we don't have a Spade suit good enough to overcall; our strength is spread out across the hand. We do have strength in the Opener's suit, though. Since it is highly likely that he has either the Ace or Queen or even both, we can confidently expect to take at least one trick in Hearts; we have at least one stopper in that suit. Since our strength is spread out, and since we have 15 points, this would be an acceptable overcall in Notrump. You should bid 1 . Move the Heart King to the Diamond suit, however, and it would be dangerous to overcall in Notrump, since you have no stopper in a suit that Opener has advertised he has both length and strength in.

So, you can overcall with a good suit, or bid Notrump with almost a Notrump opening and at least one stopper in the suit Opener bid. But if one of your opponents opens the bidding, you have another bid at your disposal that you wouldn't otherwise have. Take a look at this hand, where we again assume that the Opener on your right bid 1 :

K Q 7 2   3   A Q 4 3   K 9 8 7

Here, you have no Heart stopper, so you may not bid Notrump. Nor do you have a suit that is good enough to overcall with. On the good side, you have an opening hand- as good as the opponent who opened on your right. How can you tell your partner that you have an opening hand and could support any suit that he happened to have?

The bid that will communicate all this to your partner is the Takeout Double.

Definition: Takeout Double A bid of "Double" made immediately after an opening suit bid to your right or made when there has been an opening suit bid on your left and both your partner and Opener's partner have passed. It shows a hand with opening points and shortness in the suit bid by the Opener. Partner is required to bid, unless one of the opponents does.

Before we continue with our discussion of the Takeout Double, we need to make another definition:

Definition: Penalty Double A bid of "Double" that can be made by any player at any time that he believes that the opponent who made the previous non-pass bid will not be able to fulfill that contract. It says, basically, "I do not think your team can make the contract you have just bid, and so I am going to double the penalties you will incur if you don't, with the understanding that if you actually do make your contract, you will get extra points while our team will be penalized.

So, let's go back to the Takeout Double. If we held the hand above, we would make a Takeout Double in either the "second seat" (refers to the player to the left of the Opener) or "fourth seat" (the player to the right of the Opener). So, in either of these auctions, the Double is for takeout (partner is expected to bid his best suit) and not for penalties:

North (Opener) East (You) South West 1 Double

North (Opener) East South West (You) 1 Pass Pass Double

In both of these cases, if North does not bid again, then our partner is required to bid and he will bid his longest and strongest suit. If, and only if partner's longest and strongest suit is the one bid by the opponents (Hearts, in this case) is he allowed to pass. This will "convert" the takeout double into a penalty double.

Here is a hand on which your partner might pass your Takeout Double and convert it to a Penalty Double:

The Bidding North East South West 1 Pass Pass Double Pass ????     North   Q 7 2   A Q 8 6 4   A 4 3   Q 9 West   A 10 9 6   3   K J 10 9   A K 8 7 East   J 8 5   K J 9 7 2   Q 5 2   J 10 South   K 4 3   10 5   8 7 6   6 5 4 3 2

North opened the bidding with a perfectly reasonable 1 and East passed as his only suit had already been bid by his opponents. South passed and the bid came to West. He had more than opening count and could tell by the bidding that his side had at least half the points in the deck. He wanted to get East to bid his best suit, since he had great support for any of them and so he doubled. This conventional bid told his partner that he had an opening hand, was short in Hearts, and could support any suit his partner might have.

North passed, knowing his partner had less than 7 points (since he passed previously). East knew he was supposed to bid, but he had no suit other than Hearts. He was confident that if North ended up playing the hand, he would have a very hard time with the trumps split as badly as they were, especially since his partner had shown a weak hand. So he passed, thereby converting West's takeout double into a penalty double. East's analysis was correct; North did have great difficulty, and ended up winning only one Spade trick, two Heart tricks and one Diamond- down three. East-West ended up earning 500 penalty points from setting North-South.

There are two other teaching points in this hand. First, if you are South in a situation like this one, you know when East passes his partner's takeout double that he has the trumps stacked in his hand, and so your partner is going to have trouble. If you have a long suit of your own (six or more cards), you should consider bidding it in the hopes that partner will have some support and the split of the outstanding trumps will be better. Second, East-West can actually make game in Notrump on this hand. Shouldn't they have bid it? Possibly, although it would be a hard game to find as the cards lie just right for it to make. But they ended up scoring more points for setting their opponents than they would have for making the game, so they shouldn't feel too bad about missing it.

Your Right-Hand Opponent Opened 1

Since you now know that one of your opponents has a minimum of 16 points, the maximum that you and your partner can have is 24- not enough for game. But there are two situations in which you should bid.

First if you have an opening hand or better (13+ points), you should bid. You can use the takeout double if you have an even hand to get partner to bid his best suit, or you can bid a suit of your own. You will have to bid at the two-level, so make sure your suit is a good one.

If you have less than opening count but a very long suit (7 or 8 cards) headed by two or more honors, go ahead and bid it. If your partner has few points, then the opponents will have to decide whether they can set you enough (or at all) to justify missing their own game.

Your Right-Hand Opponent Opened With a Pre-emptive Bid

The reason your opponent opened with pre-empt was to take away your bidding room, so you may find that your first suit bid will have to be at the level of three. The good thing is that you know that at least one of your opponents had only ten points or less, but the other may have a strong hand.

If you have opening count, you should bid your suit if you have one, or use the Takeout Double if you don't (asking your partner to bid his best suit). With less than opening count, pass unless you have a very long and very strong suit- a seven-card suit headed by the KQ or better would be the minimum. Later on in the auction, you will find out where the balance of the points lie, and you can bid more strongly if you find out that your side has the majority of those points.

Your Left-Hand Opponent Opened the Bidding

In these auctions, you are the last person to bid in the first round of bidding, so not only has the Opener revealed the strength and shape of his hand, but both your partner and Opener's partner have had a chance to describe their own hands. Your bid, if any, will depend on all three of the bids thus far.

If both your partner and your right-hand opponent pass, then your bidding possibilities are the same as they are for the situation where your right-hand opponent opened. If either one or both have bid, however, you will have a wealth of information on which to base your own bid, if any.

First, use your knowledge of bidding point ranges to try to determine, as near as you can, how the 40 points in the deck are split between your opponents and yourselves (assigning about 10 points to the opponent who opened with the pre-empt). Your actions during the auction will depend on this estimated split.

If you and your partner have, together:

0-10 points
You will probably not bid. If the opponents get too high, you might have an opportunity to double, but that's about it.

11-15 points
The opponents are probably on their way to game. If you have an opportunity to bid a suit at a low level to direct partner to lead that suit during play, then you may do so. Otherwise, only if the hand is wildly distributional (you have some very, very long suit) would you consider bidding or, if the opponents bid smoothly into a game, consider sacrificing in your long suit.

16-20 points
With this many points, it is likely that the opponents will stop in a low partscore, unless the hand is highly distributional. You can compete, bidding to the two level if your opponent's have the ranking trump suit, or the three level if yours is higher. In this range, it is entirely possible that both you and your opponents can make a partscore in your best suits.

21-25 points
Here, you have the preponderance of the points, and should be comfortable bidding your suit to the three level (if it is a major) or the 4 level (if it is a minor). If the opponents choose to bid higher, you should consider doubling them, unless the hand is very distributional.

26 points and up
Of course you and your partner have game or even slam. Continue bidding until you reach one or the other. Remember that new suits are forcing, and use that tactic if you need to to make sure partner bids.

Some Comments on Competitive Bidding

Each player at the table should form and then continually refine a mental image of the other player's hands- particularly his partner's. As each bid is made, you will get more and more information, and you should strive to plug this new information into your mental model of the hands.

Remember than your partner cannot see your hand, so endeavor to describe it as accurately as you can with each bid you make. A common mistake that players make is to use the same bid to describe two different hands; there is no way for your partner to know which hand you have. Here is a simple example:

Your left-hand opponent opened the bidding with 1 and your partner said "Double". Recall that this bid means that your partner has opening count, shortness in Hearts and good support for all the other suits. Recall, too, that if your right-hand opponent does not bid, then you are forced to. What if you had this hand:

9 8 7 6 5   8 5 4   K 8 3   4 3

Obviously, you would not have bid had you not been forced to, and if your right-hand opponent bids, you will pass. But if he doesn't, then you are forced to bid your best suit, and you should bid 1 . Partner will not assume you have very many points, since you would have had to bid with a Yarborough (a hand with no points at all).

But what if you had this hand:

A 8 7 6 5   8 5 4   K 8 3   4 3

Many players would bid 1 with this hand, too, figuring that all they have is seven points, which is not even average and nothing to write home about. But you should never make the same bid with 7 points that you would make with just three; how is partner to know which you have?

With this hand, you should bid 2 . Usually, a jump shows more points than this, but on this auction, partner will know that you are simply trying to tell him that you have a Spade suit and more points than he might have expected. Add another King somewhere, and you should even jump to 3 . Always try to describe your hand as best you can with each bid.

When choosing which suit to bid, remember that length is preferred over strength. If you were to pick up this hand:

A K Q J   J 10 9 7 5 4 3   8 3

You would definitely open 1 , even though your Spades are much stronger. (You only have 11 HCP, but you have 4 distribution points, bringing your total to 15.) In fact, were partner to respond with, say, 2 , you should rebid your hearts. Even if partner has four of your Spades and only one of your Hearts, you will get more trump tricks in Hearts than in Spades, and you will be able to use those little Hearts to trump the high cards the opponents may have in Clubs and Diamonds. If Spades were trump, you would be using tricks that were already winners to trump with, and could easily lose control of the hand.

One other thing.

When either Clubs or Diamonds become your trump suit (one or the other is bid and raised), remember that to bid game (which is 5 or 5 ) you need more like 29 points between you, rather than 26, and you have to take 11 out of 13 tricks. For this reason, even if you and your partner have long, strong minor suit trump, you would do well to investigate whether you can bid 3 instead. Check to see if you have all the suits stopped, or at least partially stopped. You will always get your Club and Diamond tricks, but if you can avoid allowing the opponents to run some long suit, then making 3 is a lot easier than game in a minor. But go ahead and bid your minor suit game, particularly if an opponent has bid a suit in which you are short or weak or both. If they have, then you can be assured they will lead that suit, which may not give you time to set up your other winning tricks before they gain the lead and run that suit.

Bidding is simply a way of telling your partner about your hand. Once you have told your partner all there is to tell about your hand, you should pass, unless he forces you to bid again. For example, if with your first bid you tell your partner that you have at least 7 points, say, but you actually have 13, then you should bid again when it beomes your turn. But if 7 points is all you have, then you should pass, for you have no more than you promised your partner with your first bid.

Sometimes, an opponent’s bid can “mess up” a convention that you are trying to use. In that case, you may have to forget about the convention and just make the best bid you can think of. For example, if your partner opened 1 and you held 4 cards in hearts, you might have wanted to use Stayman (2 ) to see if your partner also held 4 hearts. But say your opponent overcalls 2 ; you can no longer use the convention. In this case you will either have to just raise your partner’s NT (if you have at least a partial stopper in the opponent’s suit) or, if you don’t have a stopper, go ahead and violate the 5-card major rule and bid your hearts anyway- even though you only hold 4 of them. Partner will know you may be in a bind, and will be more careful with his raises of your suit.

	Some Bidding Examples
	Further Bidding in Uncontested Auctions
	Index of Lessons