Andrew Robson - The Times Beginner’s Guide to Bridge - All you need to play the game

If you have a balanced hand with 12, 13 or 14 points, you should open the bidding with One no-trump (1NT). In the following example (a), all three hands are 1NT openers. In (b), none of the three hands should open 1NT. The first has too many points (15) so opening 1NT would paint too pessimistic a picture for your partner. Instead you should open One-of-a-suit (1♦ in this case) and plan to bid no-trumps at your next turn. The second hand has just eleven points, so you should pass. The third contains two doubletons: an unbalanced hand. In this case you should open 1♦.

(a) Examples of One no-trump (1NT) opening hands

(b) Examples of opening hands that are not One no-trump (1NT)

Now let’s consider your opening strategy with these three balanced opening hands:

(a) You have 13 points so should open 1NT. Leave further bidding to your partner (except in certain situations that we’ll discuss later).

(b) You have 16 points – too many to open 1NT. You should open 1♥, then show your balanced hand by bidding 1NT at your next turn. By bidding a suit followed by no-trumps you’re indicating to your partner that you have a balanced hand but with too many points to open 1NT (though not enough to open 2NT).

(c) You have 21 points. When your hand has 20+ points (i.e. at least half the pack’s total points in your hand alone) you should tell the good news to your partner by opening at the level of ‘Two’ (2NT).

Strategy for opening bidding (balanced hand)

With a balanced hand (a distribution of 5332, 4432 or 4333), your opening bidding strategy should be:

Useful tip

If you have 20+ points, open at the Two level (to remember, think ‘Two-Twenty’).

If your opening hand is unbalanced (i.e. the distribution is not 4432, 4333 or 5332), then you should avoid bidding no-trumps at your first two bids. We’ll consider these strategies in more detail later. For now, just remember that your aim is to describe your hand as accurately as possible to your partner, and if your partner responds in a new suit, you are obliged to bid again.

must know

• Introducing a suit into the bidding guarantees at least four cards in the suit are held by the bidder.

• A ‘fit’ means that a minimum of eight cards in one suit are held by the partnership.

Strategy for opening bidding (unbalanced hand)

With an unbalanced hand (not a distribution of 5332, 4432 or 4333), your opening bidding strategy should be:

There are two primary goals of the bidding:

• To find a trump suit mutually agreeable to you and your partner – this is known as ‘finding a fit’.

• To decide how many tricks to aim for in that chosen trump suit (or no-trumps) – in particular, whether to bid to a game contract.

When finding a fit, there is a minimum number of cards that should be held between you and your partner to warrant making a suit trumps. Clearly, it would be nice to hold all 13 cards in a suit, but this is rare. Eight cards is more likely and considered the minimum to make a good trump suit. This leaves the opponents with five cards in the suit (probably splitting 3-2 between the opposition partners), giving you a substantial advantage.

Three ways the suit cards may be distributed between the partnership for there to be a ‘fit’

A common scenario is that your partner bids a suit, because he holds at least four cards in the suit. You also hold four (plus) cards in the suit so you know there’s a fit. You then decide how many tricks to aim for – particularly whether or not to ‘go for game’.

Bidding to a game contract, known as ‘bidding game’ or ‘going for game’, is very important. In Rubber Bridge, one game made marks a halfway point to the ultimate goal: scoring a rubber (see pp. 220–4).

must know

You can make (win) a game either by making several small contracts (‘part-scores’) that add up to the score for game over several deals, or by making game in just one deal (a ‘game contract’). For more on part-scores and game contracts, see p. 60.

The five game contracts are 3NT, 4♥, 4♠, 5♣ and 5♦. The game contract requiring the fewest tricks to win is 3NT (six plus three = nine tricks out of a total of thirteen – see the bidding steps on p. 22), which is why it’s the most commonly played game contract – closely followed by 4♥ and 4♠. The last two (5♣ and 5♦) are more difficult and should be avoided.

A rough guide for bidding game is if your opening bid faces a hand that could also have opened the bidding (i.e. your partner also has 12 or more points), then your partnership should go for game. For example, South is dealer and he and his partner hold the following cards:

South has a balanced hand with 13 points – he opens the bidding 1NT. With the opponents silent, North, who also has an opening hand, immediately thinks ‘game’. With no particular preference for a trump suit (his hand is also balanced), he opts for game in no-trumps. He therefore bids the game contract 3NT.

A more specific guide for when to go for game in the three desirable game contracts (3NT, 4♥ and 4♠) is if you and your partner together have 25 points (i.e. ten more than your opponents out of the total, 40). It doesn’t guarantee success, and you won’t always fail if you have fewer points, but it’s a useful guide.

must know

• The five game contracts are 3NT, 4♥, 4♠, 5♣ and 5♦.

• Avoid contracts 5♣ and 5♦.

• If you have an opening hand (12+ points) and your partner also has 12+ points, you should contract for game.

• Bid game (3NT, 4♥, 4♠) if your partnership has 25+ points.

Bidding with your partner involves first trying to find a fit, then seeing whether you have enough points between you for game. This decision process is shown here:

Now let’s look at some sample pairs of hands (we’ll assume silence from the opponents). Note that ‘responder’ is bridge jargon for the opener’s partner.

(a) Opener bids 1♠, so responder knows they have at least eight spades between them – a fit. Responder must now bid. There’s no point bidding clubs – it would only confuse matters when it’s obvious spades should be trumps. The only unresolved issue is how high to bid in spades, specifically whether or not to bid for game (4♠). Responder knows that opener has 12+ points (the minimum required in order to open the bidding), and responder has 13, thus the partnership has at least 25 points, which means that responder can go for game: she bids 4♠, a ‘jump’ from the previous bid 1♠. The bidding sequence is as follows, the underlined bid being the final contract: