1C-(2D)-X...

I have been thinking a lot lately about auctions that start 1-(2)-X-(p). This seemingly simple auction can quickly become one of the murkiest constructive bidding sequences in bridge.

The double can be made with both 4 card majors, one 4 card major, or a 1 suited hand with a major. It could even be made with 5-5 in the majors and a weakish hand. Opener can then bid a 3 card major himself or make a very nebulous cuebid. Fundamentally both the double and the cuebid are overloaded.

For instance, if the auction started 1-(2-X-(p)-? one might bid 3 with any of the following hands:

1. KQ43 KQ2 A43 AJ2
2. A2 A3 432 AKQJ32
3. KQ32 KQ92 4 A652
4. KQ3 AJ2 872 AKJ4

On hand 1 opener cannot just bid 4 as partner may have a 3 card suit, and 3N may be the right spot.

On hand 2 opener just needs a stopper and doesn't want to bid 4 and bypass 3N.

On hand 3 opener has an invitational strength hand with 4-4 in the majors and wants partner to pick a major. Some people may even be planning to pass a 3M bid by partner!

On hand 4 opener is strong and balanced with no stopper. and is hoping partner can bid 3N.

So the cuebid covers a GF with 1 major, strong with clubs, invitational or game forcing with both majors, or strong balanced with no stopper. Great! The first thing that is clear is that the cuebid needs to create a force. With hand type 3 you just have to bid game or bid 2 of a major. What's not clear is what responder's duty is; bid 4 card majors up the line or bid NT with a stopper? If he bids NT with a stopper then a major suit fit may be lost opposite hand type 1 (the most common). If he bids majors up the line then hand types 2 and 3 are screwed. Not to mention that 5-3 fits are going to be very difficult to find.

We also have the issue of finding 3N when opener has one 4 card major and a stopper and responder has no stopper and the other 4 card major. For instance if you have hand 1 the auction might go 1-(2)-X-(p)-3-(p)-3-(p)-3-(p)-? Should responder always bid 3N here, with or without a stopper? This risks some silly 3N contracts as well as wrongsiding the contract if the stopper is Kx or the like.

These aren't even the only problems with this auction. The other day I had an auction start 1-(2)-X-(p)-2-(p)-3-(p)-? My partner had 4 hearts and a diamond stopper and bid 3N, worried I had a hand like 4333 with no diamond stopper. I had 4 hearts and a game going hand and was worried my partner had bid 2 with only 3. If you don't believe this is possible, ask yourself what you would do with a hand like Kxx AKx Qxx xxxx. 2N is horrible with this hand type and 2 is really your only choice. Anyways, I passed 3N and we missed our best spot of 4. I pointed out to partner that he should bid 3 and I would bid 3 with 3 hearts and no diamond stopper. While he agreed with this he wondered what would have happened if our fit was spades and not diamonds; I would be endplayed over a 3 rebid.

There are no great solutions to this problem, but perhaps with some artificiality we can improve on this auction.

Bob Hamman has played for a long time that jump shifts are forcing after a negative double. In this auction 3M can be forcing, and that eliminates hand 1 from the immediate cuebid. Over 3 partner can bid 3 without a fit or diamond stopper and opener can bid 3N with a stopper. There is still a guess over a jump to 3 though.

This would leave the direct cuebid to show a strong hand with clubs or a strong balanced hand without a diamond stopper. This would leave responder free to bid 3N whenever they have a stopper, and bid 3M with a 5+ card suit. Definitely a big improvement.

Even better would be to use 2N as an artificial bid. Really, bidding 2N with a weak NT is not a good option anyways, you may have only half the deck and would much rather play 2 of a major. 2N could puppet to 3, then 3 could show 4-4 majors invite, 3M could be that major plus a stopper in diamonds, game forcing. 3N would be 18-19 balanced with a diamond stopper. A direct 3 would simply be GF in clubs or strong balanced without a stopper, 3M would be natural and forcing, denying a stopper, and a direct 3N would be based on club tricks and a diamond stopper (so partner won't pull with a 6 card major). This solves all hand types and eliminates guessing.

That would mean that 2M could frequently be based on a 3 card suit. Over the cue you only have a problem sorting out stoppers and 4-4 fits if opener has 4 spades and a stopper and responder has 4 hearts, less than 4 spades, and a stopper.

I think this is a great improvement for almost no cost on one of the worst auctions in bridge. You only lose a natural 2N (useless) and invitational 3 of a major bids (of very limited use), in order to gain a lot of clarity on the NT vs major decision. A nice advantage of forcing 3M bids is better slam bidding as well (as trumps are set earlier).

Forcing 2N bids

In recent years there has been a movement towards defining a lot of 2N bids as forcing in uncontested auctions. Bidding lots of suits with a strong, balanced hand leads either to convoluted auctions where you never reveal the true nature of your hand or requires you to jump to 3N killing an enormous amount of bidding space. In general with balanced hands you always want to describe that feature as early and cheaply as possible.

In an auction like 1-(p)-1-(p)-2 if responder happens to have 4324 or 4333 with 16 points he has to bid either 2 or 3 and later guess whether to go past 3N in order to raise diamonds. This leads to silly things like bidding THREE suits with a balanced hand and possibly never bidding NT. If you are willing to give up on an invitational 2N you can use 2N here as forcing, solving these issue and leading to much smoother auctions. Of course this leaves you stuck with a balanced 10 or 11 points, but some of those hands can game force and several can bid 3. It's unlikely that 2N will be a much better spot than 3 anyways.

Auctions like 1m-(p)-2N and even 1M-(p)-2N can be played as forcing for similar reasons. The biggest advantage, though, is that the integrity of your other sequences is preserved as you no longer need to create auctions to handle the balanced hand type. Of course, barring artificiality, with 11 or 12 and a balanced hand you will need to either game force or make a non forcing bid. That may seem like a significant loss but keep in mind how narrow that range is. Much more often you will hold a balanced game force, and on those hands you will now be well positioned to reach an intelligent contract.

It occurred to me yesterday that this principle could be extended to times when the opponents overcall over a minor suit opening. In fact, it is much easier to do so after an overcall.

After 1m-(1M) experts will not bid 1N freely with something like a 7 count. This is mainly because it is now more dangerous to bid and you don't need to keep the auction open for partner. So the range of a 1N bid is something like 8-10 when bid freely, but I have certainly seen people bid 1N with a bad 11 (usually when they don't have a double stopper in RHO's suit). I have also seen people bid 3N with 11 if they had something like AQTx in RHO's suit because their honors are well placed.

This would seem to beg the question, what use does an invitational 2N have? If you just increase the range of 1N by a point and game force with 12 you can once again use 2N as forcing.

2N forcing is especially useful after an overcall because sometimes you will only have 1 stopper. For instance with Q832 KQ3 K32 AT2 after 1-1 you would hate to bid 3N as it could easily be a terrible contract opposite short spades. You have no good options though; a cuebid shows diamond support and doubling shows 4 hearts. Bidding 2N forcing allows partner room to describe his hand below 3N, and you can show some doubt about NT and perhaps get to 5 of a minor. The forcing 2N also aids your slam bidding significantly by giving you an extra level, and gives you a way to bid a hand like 18 or 19 balanced without having to invent a ridiculous auction and then guess what to do.