Lesson 4: Basic Bidding Conventions

Next: Lesson 5: Forcing and Artificial Bids In this lesson you'll learn about how to bid more unusual hands, how to bid when your opponents are also bidding, how to deal with no trump opening bids, and about natural forcing bids.

Distribution Points

The first thing, before we go on, is that there are actually more points you can count your hand than just high-card points. This is to recognize that just because two hands have an equal point count doesn't mean they represent an approximately equal number of tricks. As an extreme example, consider this hand

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

versus a hand like

: A, K, Q, J, 10, 8, 4, 3, : 4, : 8, 3, : 5, 4

The first hand is worth about 1 trick, (a finesse gives one trick in Spades, and a finesse gives one trick in Diamonds. Since finesses have only a 50% chance of succeeding, we cound these as half-tricks each), whlie the second hand is worth 8 tricks in spades. However they are both worth only 10 points. So, there are bonuses you can count for your hand's long suits, since these are what give you possible extra tricks:

When we add these points in we see that the first hand is still worth only 10 points but the second hand is now worth 14. Naturally, this gives you a higher point-count for your hands, but that's fine, because actually opening only with 13 high card points is a bit on the conservative side.

The Five-Card Major Convention

What you learned in lesson 2 covered the most common case of bridge bidding. However, there is one significant difference between what you learned in lesson 2 and what people actually play. That difference is that pretty much everyone plays five-card majors. What this means, concisely, is that: The second rule is a natural consequence from the first. Sometimes, you have an opening hand like this:

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

and you can't open 1 or 1 because you only have 4 cards in each suit. But you have 13 points, so you should really open SOMEthing, so you bid your best minor suit (remember the 10-9-8 club suit is better than the Q-5 diamond suit, because length is better than strength).

There are two main reasons for playing five-card majors. First of all, since majors are worth more points, we prefer to find fits in major suits over finding fits in minor suits. Secondly, if we go to game in whatever suit we are going to find the fit in, there's less space to get up to 4 or 4 than there is to get up to 5 or 5. Since there's less room, we explore the major suits first.

One crucial thing the 5-card major convention implies: if your partner raises in your major suit, you have an 8-card fit, since you must have 5 cards and your partner must have 3 (at least). Thus, you have found a fit in only two bids!

The 1NT opening bid, and how to bid after a 1NT opening bid

Recall that if your hand has 15-17 points and has a fairly even distribution, you can open 1NT. Now that we have introduced distribution points, let us slightly alter this requirement. For a 1NT opening, we actually require 15-17 points, only counting high cards. Furthermore, let us define exactly what we mean by a "fairly even distribution." We require: As you can see, this is a pretty restrictive bid. Besides having a tight range of allowable point values, you can't have either a really good suit or a really bad suit. However, because it conveys so much information you should always bid 1NT when you can. 1NT is a more descriptive bid than 1 of a suit. (The exception: if you have a very good 5-card major suit, it may be preferable to open 1 of that suit).

Responses to 1NT

When your partner opens with 1NT, she has given you so much information about her hand that you should be able to almost decide on the contract yourself. These are what the natural responses to 1NT are, and what the 1NT opener is expected to do after each of them.

Stronger Opening Bids

If you remember, the rules we laid out for responding to 1NT and the rules for responding to 1 of a suit say that if you have less than 6 points you should pass. This is probably fine most of the time, but what if you have a very strong hand, enough (or almost enough) to make game all by yourself? Clearly we need some other bids to handle these exceptional cases, or games contracts will slip through our fingers. Here are the strong opening bids available:

Competitive Bidding

What if the opponents are bidding but you have good playing possibilities? It seems like a shame to pass with a hand like

: A, Q, 7, 6, 5, : K, Q, 10, 8, : 4, : A, 10, 8

just because the player to your right opened the bidding with 1. Actually it would be a real shame - your hand is worth 16 points, but may only take 3 tricks if you play against a diamond contract. Furthermore, you are sitting "behind" the opponent who opened. This means that your finesses will probably work; you may win 3 high card tricks in hearts and 2 in spades, but only if you are playing in a trump suit you like. It would, in fact, be criminal to pass with this hand. You have two choices for what to bid. You could bid 1 or you could make a takeout double. Let us go over what these bids mean.

With the hand above, it is probably better to double, since this shows you have a hand stronger than the minimum overcall, and since you have support for any suit partner may name. Let us focus for a moment on the nature of this 'forcing ' bid. If your partner makes a take-out double, it is your responsibility to make sure that that doubled contract does not become the final contract. Suppose the bidding started 1 - double - pass. If you pass, the next player can pass and then the opponents will be playing in a doubled contract at the one level, which they are not so unlikely to make. Thus, you are expected not to pass, even with a hand like

: 10, 8, 4, 3, 2, : J, 7, 6, 4, 2: 8, : 9, 2

Imagine you passed and your partner was holding the previous hand. Now you and your partner have so many spades and hearts between you that it is doubtful you will win more than 1 trick between them, plus partner will win his ace of clubs, so your opponents will make 11 tricks in 1 doubled, which gives them 40 below the line and 450 above the line. Oops! That's a lot of points they got. Now you are very weak but if you just bid 1 or 1 then even if the opponents leave you there, you probably won't go down more than 1. That only gives them 50 points.

Now you should notice that because a hand like this one, with only 3 points, is expected to bid something, it becomes very problematic if the player who originally doubled shifts to a new suit. Imagine the bidding went 

LHO       Partner       RHO         You
1        double        pass        1
pass      2            pass        ?
You are in an uncomfortable situation. You don't like clubs, but you are weak so bidding again seems bad. Because partner's 2 bid puts you in such an uncomfortable position, it has a special meaning. If you play a take-out double and then change suits, you are showing a strong hand - at least 17 points. Thus, the weak-handed partner shouldn't worry too much about bidding again as long as they behave minimally. If they bid a new suit this shows some strength. If they are happy with the doubler's new suit, they can pass, or they can rebid their own suit to show a weak hand.

The take-out double is not always a good bid, however. Suppose your right hand opponent opens 1 and you hold

: A, K, J, 8, 6, : Q, J, 9, : K, 8, 4, 3, : 3

Now it would be bad to double. What if partner raised the bid up to 2? You couldn't stay in clubs - you might only have 5 between you. But you can't name your own suit, because that would proimse 17 points. So the best move is to make an overcall - simply bid 1 over 1. If your partner has a good spade holding, she m ay raise you. If she has a strong hand but not good spades, she may name a new suit. If she has a weak hand she'll pass, but maybe you made it tougher for the opponents to find their fit.

Pre-empts

Remember how in lesson 2 we mentioned that with a 7-card suit you can open at the 3-level? Well pre-empts actually come up more often than that, and there are more meanings. First of all, for opening bids: Now, if your opponents have bid, with hands like these, you can make other kinds of overcalls. There's more to bidding than this, however. For more you'll have to move on to the next lesson.

Next: Lesson 5: Forcing and Artificial Bids