Beginner bridge: Responding to opening bid

The Game Room
1

I’ve just started learning bridge, Standard American bidding.

So far, two friends have helped me by teaching the basics of bidding and how to play a hand. I’ve also done quite a bit of research online and I found a very useful iOS app: LearnBridge. I’ve played several games against the computer.

Another friend (who has been playing bridge for 50 years) has given me a “cheat sheet” with an overview of opening bids, responses and leads. It seems okay (based on minimum 13 points to open) but the rules for responses are not consistent with what I’ve learned. Here’s what they say:
< 6 points Pass
6-8 points Bid one up in partner’s suit if you have 3 or more cards in that suit
Bid one No Trump if less than 3 cards in partner’s suit
9+ points Bid best suit
13+ points Jump in partner’s major suit if you have length and are strong in partner’s suit

The rule for 6-8 points ignores major vs. minor suits. Here’s my explanation, for my own edification:
There’s a big difference between an opening bid of 1♠ and 1♣. With spades, the bid guarantees at least 5 spades, so if the partner has three spades, there’s a fit of 8 cards. But with clubs, the guarantee is just 3 clubs so having 3 additional clubs doesn’t mean much. It’s worth exploring the possibility of a contract based on a major suit, which earns more points and requires one fewer trick for game. It’s possible that a 1♣ bid is based on a hand with 4 hearts so if the partner has 4 hearts then he should bid 1♥ rather than 1NT (with less than 10 points). That’s right, isn’t it? I’m more than willing to be corrected.

I have a few more issues with the suggested responses but I won’t get into them now. The main issue is that I’ll probably be playing with my friend at some point and I don’t know how to approach him about his cheat sheet. He is quite certain about his expertise and he has urged me to learn his rules. I hesitate to question his cheat sheet, which he has given to some of my other friends.

So, are his rules usable as is? Are they just deliberately dumbed down for beginners?

Thanks.

2

I know that the intent was to give a few simple rules in the form of a cheat sheet, but those are pretty bad.

The over-arching strategy is to prioritize:

  1. Find a major fit. Major suit games are readily achievable at the 4 level. In competitive bidding, spades outrank all the others suits, and hearts outrank the minors.
  2. In constructive bidding if a major suit fit is not found, attempt to declare a no-trump contract. Unless there is an obvious weakness in one or more suits.
  3. A good minor suit fit is fine for competitive bidding but requires the 5 level to make a game.

So with rules 1 and 3 in mind (and as you aptly pointed out) try to support your partner’s major opening, but bid your own suits (especially majors) in response to a minor opening. You do not need more than a minimum to introduce a new suit at the one level.

There’s a lot more of course. Standard American (I believe) now means five card majors. Also, most partnerships play 2 over 1 game forcing. You have to decide on that (I think 2/1 is great for eliminating many gray areas and subtleties that you would otherwise encounter all the time)

3

It’s been years since I played and I won’t comment on the quality of your friend’s cheat sheet, but here are two things to bear in mind:

  1. Bidding is a dialog between the partners. Systems can be good or bad, but a bad system understood by both players is better than a good system used badly. If this is what your friend expects and has internalized over 50 years you might as well just learn it. And if he described it badly you can have a good fight about who’s fault it is your bidding sucked.
  2. Replying with 2 clubs doesn’t give as much information as bidding 2 spades, but it also leaves room for the opening bidder to try a different suit at the 2 level or just chicken out at 2 clubs if the opponents let him. What does the cheat sheet say about the third bid?
4

There’s nothing in the cheat sheet about the third bid.
The other day I was chatting with my friend and I mentioned that I’m learning a lot but I’m not comfortable with the second round of bidding. He said to look at his sheet, as if it provided the answer. Maybe he misunderstood what I meant.

Anyway, I agree with your comments about bidding being a dialog between partners.

5

Standard American is five-card majors. Do you play Acol?
2/1 is a bit too advanced for me and, I think, for my friends.
Thanks for your overview of bidding strategy.

6

I play and teach bridge.

My guidelines would be based on a fit with partner i.e. 8+ cards combined.
If you have a fit, add extra points to your high card points as follows:

+1 for 9 combined trumps (e.g. 4 cards opposite a 5 card major opening)
+1 for a doubleton
+3 for a singleton
+5 for a void

Assuming you play 5 card majors (jolly popular in the US), my guidelines would be

  • < 6 points pass
  • with 6-9 points and a fit (4 cards in clubs or diamonds; 3 cards in hearts or spades) raise partner’s suit by one
  • with 6-9 points and no fit, if possible bid a 4 card suit at the one level (otherwise bid 1NT)
  • with 10-12 points and a fit, raise partner’s suit by two
  • with 10-15 points and no fit, bid your best suit (if necessary at the two level)
  • with 16+ points, jump in a new suit

These may seem more complicated, but for sure they are better than your friends!

Here’s some examples.

Partner opens 1♥ and you have:

:spades: Qxx
:heart: Jxx
:diamonds: xxx
:clubs: xxxx

Pass

:spades: Qxx
:heart: Jxx
:diamonds: xxx
:clubs: Axxx

bid 2♥

:spades: x
:heart: Jxxx
:diamonds: xxx
:clubs: Axxxx

bid 2♥ (you have 4 high card points, plus 1 for the 9th trump and 3 for the singleton)

:spades: Qxxx
:heart: Jx
:diamonds: xxx
:clubs: Axxx

bid 1​:spades: (because you can find a fit in :spades: if partner has 4)

:spades: Qxx
:heart: Jx
:diamonds: xxxx
:clubs: Axxx

bid 1NT

:spades: Qxx
:heart: Jx
:diamonds: xxx
:clubs: AKxxx

bid 2♣

:spades: Qxx
:heart: Jxx
:diamonds: xx
:clubs: AKxxx

bid 3♥

:spades: xx
:heart: Jxxx
:diamonds: xx
:clubs: AKxxx

bid 3♥ (you have 8 high card points, plus 1 for the 9th trump and 2 for the doubletons)

:spades: Qxx
:heart: Jx
:diamonds: AJx
:clubs: AKQxx

bid 3♣

7

Thanks glee for the tips. They’re consistent with my understanding of responding to an opening bid.

Unfortunately, I think it’s going to be difficult to bring up another set of guidelines with my friend.
I’m meeting tomorrow with another friend who plays bridge with the first friend and who is happy to teach me. I’ll ask her about what guidelines she follows.

Thanks again.

8

Well, I met with my other friend and she said she follows the guideline that, when responding to opening trump bid of 1, you can’t bid another suit unless you have at least 10 points. If she doesn’t have 3 cards of the partner’s suit, she bids 1NT. She’s been playing bridge for 10 years.

Then I played with some other friends and my partner said the same thing: with 6 to 9 points and without 3 cards of the partner’s suit, pass it back to the opener by bidding 1NT.

Makes no sense to me.

I then emailed my friend who wrote the cheat sheet and he said that the “new bidding” says you can bid a new suit with 6 to 9 points, as long as you stay at the 1 level. He also said that having 3 cards of the partner’s suit only applies to major suits. Makes sense.

He also said that he plays minimum 4-card diamonds which means that sometimes 1♣ is based on only 2 clubs.

9

I haven’t played bridge in ages, but that might actually give me some good perspective to step back and give some advice. So, three points (and actual experts, feel free to correct this very old and maybe incorrectly-remembered advice):
(1) The main thing to think about, philosophically, is that each bid you make is sort of a “yes, and…” on top of previous bids you’ve made. So, for instance, if you open 1H, you’re promising 13+ points and 5+ hearts. If you then bid 2H on your next bid, whatever your partner responds with, you’re never just saying “hey, remember, I have hearts” or “no, I don’t like that idea, I still have 13 points and 5 hearts”. You must be providing MORE info than your previous bids did. There are way way too many combinations of bids to begin to cover all the rules for what the “yes, and…” actually means. But generally, bidding a suit again means “oh, and I have more of that suit than I previously said”. And jumping a level higher than necessary means “oh, and I have a more powerful hand than I had previously promised”. So 1H - 1NT - 2H, the second bid of 2H is now promising 6+ hearts, rather than just the 5+ already promised.

Keeping that in mind, there are two primary sub-conversations that are always going on, and the bidding is designed to answer both of these questions for both players as fast as possible:
(2) Do we, between the two of us, have an 8-card major suit?
and even more importantly
(3) Do we, between the two of us, have the approximately 26ish high card points necessary to make a game in a major suit or NT? If not, we wan to stop our bidding as soon as possible in a non-catastrophic contract. If so, we want to find that game bid.

(3) in particular explains why the precise high card point ranges of the bids are important. If your partner opens 1H, they are promising 13+ HCP, but, to be more precise, they are promising something like 13-20 HCP, because with 21+ they would open something stronger (2C is often an artificial bid that means “I have a super strong hand”, but says nothing about suits). So if your partner opens 1H, and you have 3HCP, then the max HCP you can have, as a partnership, is 23. So you can not make a game. That’s why it’s OK for you to pass there, but not if you have 6+ HCP, Because if you have 6+ HCP, and your partner has the strongest possible 1H opening, and you pass, then they will never get a chance to make a “yes, and” bid saying they have 20 HCP, and you will fail to make your game.

But this works both ways. Let’s say that your bidding agreement is that if you can’t support your partner’s suit, you bid 1NT if you have 6-9 HCP. Then, once you have made that bid, if you are doing it honestly, your partner (who of course knows how many HCP they have) now has a very precise idea of the total HCP between both your hands. And they can now pass or keep bidding.

Basically, you are never allowed to pass short of game until you “know” that game is not possible, due to a bid with a “cap” from your partner plus your own hand.

The other important thing to do is find 8-card majors. Most of the time, an 8-card suit will be either 4-4 or 5-3 between your two hands. That’s why 5-cards-major-openings is such a useful convention… it immediate plants a staff and says not just “hmm, I’m kinda interested in hearts”, but “I have FIVE of the hearts we need”. And, because 5-card-majors are so important, opening up 1C or 1D also clearly and strongly says “I do NOT have a 5-card-major, period”. At which point, partner, if they don’t have at least a 4-card-major, immediately knows that no 5-card-major is possible. So, for major suits, any bid of the major suit makes a promise of length. And (generally speaking) any time you could have bit a major suit but did not is a denial of length.

For instance:
1C - 2C
Opener is denying a 5-card major
Responder is denying a 4-card major
At this point, after two bids, both partners know that they have no major suit contract

1C - 1H - 1NT
Opener has denied a 5-card major
Responder has promised 4+ hearts
Opener has denied exactly 4 hearts (and, probably, denied 4 spades as well, as they skipped their chance to go 1C - 1H - 1S, which would VERY clearly describe their hand, and thus would be a good bid to make)
So, they might still have 8 hearts between them. If responder has exactly 4 hearts only, then THEY know they don’t have 8 hearts, but original-opener doesn’t, yet. etc.

10

Well, I met with my other friend and she said she follows the guideline that, when responding to opening trump bid of 1, you can’t bid another suit unless you have at least 10 points. If she doesn’t have 3 cards of the partner’s suit, she bids 1NT. She’s been playing bridge for 10 years.

I don’t think you have that quite right - or if you do your friend doesn’t know how to play. She is saying you open 1 diamond, she holds five hearts 8 points, she can’t bid one heart? Obviously not.
She might have been referring to a 2/1 bid - ie if you open 1 heart and she wants to bid two clubs or two diamonds then yes you do need some stuff for that - 10pts+ sounds right in Standard American (I play 2/1 where you need a bit more).

The formalised version of Standard American is called SAYC (yellow card) and it is completely systematic - why don’t you give that a look? No grey areas or he said / she said debate over what bids mean. It’s good for beginners and provides a common language for casual online play.
The other approach would be just to learn something good from day one but I guess you need a partner on the same page for that. 2/1 is a natural system and easy to learn ime, it’s not like some highly artificial thing where you’d be trying to run before you can walk.

He also said that he plays minimum 4-card diamonds which means that sometimes 1♣ is based on only 2 clubs.

This is common but not sure if it’s good to start with - it fits into more advanced bidding structures. American players would be better placed to advise here, maybe it’s normal over there for those starting out (I do play short club myself but the follow ups are quite systemic).

11

It’s why I want to make sure that the early bids are interpreted correctly

Obvious or not, that is what she’s saying. Same with another partner I played with.

I’ve looked at it here: ACBL SAYC.
Very detailed, and some of it is beyond my current level of understanding. Unfortunately, it doesn’t explicitly stipulate that a 1-suit bid with 6 points can be a response to an opening bid of 1♣.
In any case, as a beginner with less than a month’s experience, I don’t see how I can suggest to my friends that they adopt SAYC.

12

My partner and I play 1C as 2+ clubs, and we are pretty inexperienced. Nothing we do really depends on it, I don’t think. It’s just nice to know that 1D means four of them. Maybe it has knock-on consequences I’m unaware of.

13

That’s a fairly standard convention, but a a tournament or club play the partner of the 1C opener is supposed to announce “Could be short”.