Lesson 2: The Very Basics of Bidding

Next: Lesson 3: The Very Basics of Playing

So, you're sitting down at the table playing bridge for the first time and you open up your hand and see these cards:

A, 8, 8, 9, 2, 7, K, Q, 7, 5, K, Q, 8

And you're first to bid. What do you do? How are you supposed to know how good your partner's hand is? How do you know what suit you should play in, or should you play in no trump? Well, the first thing you need to do is sort your hand into suits. Your hand, again, in suit-sorted form:

:A, K, 8, 7, 5, :Q, 8, :8, 7, :K, Q, 9, 2

The first question you have to answer is whether you should make a bid or pass with this hand. If you and your partner have the high cards to take more then half the tricks, then you should probably be the team that plays (as opposed to the team that defends), so you should bid. If you don't, you should probably pass since otherwise you might be getting into a contract that you can't make. We can answer this first question by using the point counting system which lets us evaluate our hand.

Evaluating your hand

As a point of fact, most of the tricks in bridge are won by the high cards: Aces, Kings, Queens, and Jacks. Therefore, we pay attention mostly to the high cards in our hand when we evaluate. You score:

4 points for each Ace,
3 points for each King,
2 points for each Queen, and
1 point for each Jack.

Since there are 4 Aces, 4 Kings, 4 Queens, and 4 Jacks in the deck, there are a total of 40 points in the deck. Therefore, if you have 10 points your hand has an average share of the points; if you have 6 you have a worse than average hand, and if you have 14 you have more than an average hand.

This brings us to the first guideline for bidding: If you have 13 points or more in your hand, you should open the bidding. (This means that if you have the opportunity to be the first player who doesn't pass, you should take it.) If you have 12 points or fewer in your hand you should probably not open the bidding, though as we get more advanced we'll see there are situations where you would want to open with a weaker hand.

So, let's count the points in our example hand. We have one ace (4 points), two kings (6 points), and two queens (4 points), for a total of 14 points. Not bad! We should open the bidding with this hand. But the next question is, what should we bid?

What strain to bid

In the case of our example hand, this question is pretty easy. We have 5 cards in spades, and we have more points in spades (7 points) than in any other suit. Spades is definitely our best suit: it's our longest and strongest. However, it's not always the case that the longest suit we get will be the strongest. What do you do then? Suppose our hand is:

: A, K,

J, 10, 9, 7, 3,

: K, Q, 8,

: Q, 4, 2

This time, our longest suit is hearts but our strongest suit is spades. Which would make a better trump suit? The answer is hearts. The length of your trump suit is more important than the strength of your trump suit. With this hand, you would open 1.

Finally, you might not particularly like any of your suits. If your hand has a flat distribution, and you have 15-17 points, you can open with 1 No Trump. But for now, don't make 1 No Trump opening bids; bidding after 1 No Trump is different, and we'll just cover it later.

If you were first to bid, what would you bid with the following hands?

: Q, J, 9, : K, 8, 5, 4, 3, 2, : A, 10, : J, 5
: A, 5, 3, : K, 6, 3, : A, 8, 5, 2, : K, 10, 9
: 10, 9, 8, 5, 3, 2, : A, K, Q, : K, 7 : Q, 9

My answers are below:

Pass. You only have 11 points.
Bid 1. It's only 4 cards, but it's your best suit.
Bid 1. It's your weakest suit, but your longest. Length is more important than strength.

What happens next?

Once you have made an opening bid, your partner will probably make the next bid. You should pay attention to two things about partner's bid: the strength it shows, and the shape it shows. First, figure out how strong your partner's bid is. Here are some guidelines about partner's strength based on his bid (incidentally, you should pay attention to this too, since sometimes your PARTNER will the the one who opens and YOU will be the one who has to respond.)

If partner bids at all, he has at least 6 points.
If partner bids 1NT, he has no more than 9 points.
If partner raises your suit one level, he has no more than 9 points.
If partner bids in a new suit at the 2 level, he has at least 10 points.
If partner raises your suit by two levels, he has from 10 to 13 points.
If partner bids a new suit or no trump, but not at the lowest level he could have bid that suit, he promises a very strong hand. Players vary, but for now, consider this to guarantee 15 points or more.

The magic number for you to keep in mind is 26. If you and your partner have 26 points, you should be able to bid a contract that will give you enough points to win the game. The following are the minimum level required in each strain to give 100 points.

Clubs or Diamonds: 5*
Hearts or Spades: 4
No Trump: 3

Since Clubs and Diamonds require a level 5 bid to make game, you need a little more strength between you and your partner. You should probably stay away from game in a minor suit ("minor" refers to clubs and diamonds, while "major" refers to hearts and spades) unless you think you and your partner together have 29 points. On the other hand, it is about equally hard to make 10 tricks with a trump suit as it is to make 9 tricks without one (provided that the trump suit is mostly held by you and your partner, of course), so you don't need extra points to go to 4 of a major.

So, right away, your partner's bid may tell you whether or not you have the points to be bidding game. That's good to know but you probably won't use it just yet.

The other information his bid gives you is about the distribution of cards in his hand. Keep in mind that if you have 8 cards in a suit between the two of you, this is a good "fit" and you are probably best playing with that suit as trump. The following tells you what your partner means about his shape depending on his bid.

If partner raises your suit, he must have at least 3 cards in it. You should probably make your final bid, whatever it is, in this suit.
If partner doesn't raise your suit, they pretty much guarantee they don't have *4* cards in it, though they may have 3 cards.
If partner bids in a new suit, they guarantee they have at least 4 cards in it.
If partner bids 1NT, it says nothing except what it says by not raising in your suit.
If partner bids 2NT or 3NT, they actually have a fairly flat distribution (all suits about the same length), except they may be a bit shorter in your suit.

So, let us suppose your partner opens the bidding with a bid of 1

. If you hold the following what would you bid in response?

: A, 5, 3, 2, : K, 6, 3, : Q, 8, 5, : K, 10, 9
: K, 8, 4, 3, 2, : J, 10, : K, 9, : 8, 5, 4, 3
: Q, J, 3, : 9, 4, : A, 10, 9, 8, 4, : J, 5, 4
: 7, 5, 3, 2, : K, 6, 3, : J, 8, 5, : 10, 9, 5
: 6, 4, 3, : A, 2, : Q, 10, 4, : Q, 10, 9, 7, 6
: A, K, Q, J, 5, : K, 6, 3, : K, J, 8, : 9

My answers are below:

Bid 3. You have 12 points and 3 cards in hearts.
Bid 1. You don't have support for hearts, but you have a suit you can mention at the 1 level.
Bid 1NT. You can't bid 2 because you only have 8 points.
Pass. You only have 4 points.
Bid 2. You don't have very good support for hearts so you should mention your suit. Since you have 10 points you can bid 2.
Bid 2. You have 17 points. Even though you have heart support you should not bid 2 or 3 because this limits your hand to strength well below what you have.

Is that enough information?

Now that it's your turn to bid again, it's probably time to place the contract. Your job is now to decide whether you should be playing in game or not (and "maybe" is an okay answer), and to decide what suit to bid next, if you are going to keep bidding. Here's a guide to making that decision:

If you know you have enough points for game, and you know of a suit with an 8-card fit, you should just bid game in that suit.
If you know you don't have enough points for game, and the suit your partner bid is one with a 7-card fit, you should simply pass.
If you might have enough points for game and you know of a suit with an 8-card fit, bid 3 of that suit.
If you don't know of a suit with a fit, you can (1) bid a new suit which you have at least 4 cards in, (2) rebid a suit which you have at least 6 cards in, or (3) bid in No Trump. If you know you have strength enough for game, show your strength by going to 1 level higher than the minimum bid in the suit you chose. If you don't, bid at the lower level.

For example, let's say you had the first example hand,

:A, K, 8, 7, 5,

:Q, 8,

:8, 7,

:K, Q, 9, 2

what would you do if, over your 1 opening bid, bid:

1NT?
2?
2?
2?
3?
3?

My answers are below.

Bid 2. You don't have strength for game, but you don't have a good suit either, so you should mention your club suit.
Bid 2NT. You haven't mentioned clubs, but now the worst suit in your hand is covered by partner's cards, so you probably won't be that badly off in No Trump.
Bid 3. You might have strength for game, and clubs is your suit.
Pass. You don't have strength for game, and Spades is your suit.
Your call. You have about a chance of having enough strength for game, so if you feel agressive bid 4, and if you feel conservative, pass.
Bid 5. Your partner guarantees to have 15 points by bidding 3 instead of 2. You have an 8-card fit and 29 points between you. You should be in game in Clubs (remember, 29 points is enough for game in a minor).

What about the rest of the time?

Now you know enough to bid with basic competency when you should be bidding. What about if the other players are bidding? Well for now, we'll teach you only two things: If you have a 7-card suit or longer, and at least 6 points, you should bid 3 of that suit the first chance you get. This is a "pre-empt", which means it pushes the bidding up high to get in your opponents' way. It can be very annoying to bid 1

and have the next player bid 3

! You will probably go down but if so, you probably kept them from finding a game contract. If this is not the case, just pass. For now keep in mind (and this goes for when you are bidding as well): "When in doubt, pass!"

Next: Lesson 3: The Very Basics of Playing.