When we choose to adopt the alternative approach to our 2/1 GF responses, “2♦ showing a 5+card suit, 2♣ being “could be short as 2 cards”, then this changes our reasonable options for rebids by the Opener. It is important that we have good agreements with partner about how this approach changes our rebid agreements. Let’s look at the hands that are simplified by these agreements and problems that are created.

There is not just one version of a 2/1 Game Forcing bidding system. There are a variety of conventional rebids that are additions to a fundamental 2/1 GF system, but there are also some fundamental response agreements that can be adjusted. One of these is the length that we promise when we respond in a minor suit at the 2-level. In the standard 2/1 system a 2♥ response shows at least a 5-card suit, a 2♦ response shows at least a 4-card suit, and 2♣ usually shows a 4+ card suit (occasionally it could be a 3-card suit). Let’s look at these responses in detail as well as an alternative response structure where we require 5 cards to bid 2♦ and then must use a 2♣ response with a large variety of hands.

Transfers are an extremely useful tool for competitive bidding.  So are relay bids, like the way we use 2NT in a Lebensohl auction. We can play a useful system, like Transfer Lebensohl, in a variety of different situations. Let’s see how we can use these methods after partner opens the bidding and the opponents take away our bidding space with a Weak Jump Overcall.

When partner open the bidding with 1-minor and our RHO makes an overcall of a suit, then we need a way to describe our hand to partner.  The traditional Responder tools are negative double and positive freebids, but in some auctions, there are other approaches that use transfers to give us a better way to compete as Responder. Unfortunately, we don’t have a transfer structure in every auction (when they overcall 1♠, we have very few good systems) but hopefully there will be more and more interesting development in this area of bidding theory.

When partner opens the bidding with a minor suit and right hand opponent makes a takeout double, the modern approach for many expert partnerships is to play transfer bids by the Responder.  By Responder transferring to the suit with length instead of bidding it, we gain many advantages in these competitive bidding auctions.  Let’s look at how we use these transfers by Responder and what they gain for us.

When partner opens the bidding with a Major suit and right hand opponent makes a takeout double, the modern approach for many expert partnerships is to play transfer bids by the Responder.  By Responder transferring to the suit with length instead of bidding it, we gain many advantages in these competitive bidding auctions.  Let’s look at how we use these transfers by Responder and what they gain for us.

When our LHO opens the bidding, partner makes a simple overcall, and Responder makes a Negative Double, then we in the position of the Advancer. We can choose to play Transfers in the position as well.  By doing so, we give our selves an additional step and we often allow ourselves more ways to raise partner.  These Transfer bids also cause some more difficulty for the opponents – making the meaning of their bids less clear. Let’s see how they work.  

Responding to 1NT is a balancing act of showing both strength and shape while keeping the auction at a low enough level.  With a game forcing hand (10+ points), the goal is usually to be able to describe our hand below 3NT, particularly with hands that are strong enough to be interested in slam.   This is not a problem with relatively balanced hands, but with distributional hands it may be more difficult for Responder to show their shape and explore slam without getting the auction too high (going past 3NT).  Transfer bids allow Responder to show their shape while using space efficiently.  After making a transfer bid, Responder usually gets to make a second bid without the auction getting much higher - one of the most valuable parts of playing transfers.  A way to further improve our use of bidding space is to play transfer bids not only on the first round of the bidding, but on the second round also after a Major-suit transfer.  Let’s see how these Transfers Over Transfers work on Responder’s second bid after a Responder starts with a Jacoby Transfer. 

Transfers have become a larger and larger part of both competitive and constructive bidding.  These transfers help with playing the contract from correct side, but they are also effective in searching for a fit while keeping the auction at a low level.  One auction where transfers by Responder can be helpful is after Opener has started with a suit opening bid at the 1-level (1X) and then made a jump rebid of 2NT – showing a balanced hand with 18-19 points.  Let’s see how transfers by Responder in this auction can help our side describe our hands in the limited space below 3NT. This treatment replaces Modified Wolff Signoff after a 2NT rebid.

There are two general categories of systems against the opponents 1NT opening bids – ones that use a Double as Penalty and others that use a Double as conventional.  When the opponents open the bidding with a weak 1NT we need a good method for dealing with their unusual opening bid.  The most common range for a weak NT is 12-14 points, but we define 1NT to be weak if the range does not contain 16 points.  Some examples:  10-12, 11-13, 11-14, 12-14, 12-15, or 13-15 points.  Against these opening bids we use a system that has a penalty double. Let’s look at one fo the most interesting of these sysetm, Landy with Transfer bids.

When our side opens the bidding 2♣, we need an agreement about how we handle our responses.  There are a variety of ways to handle this -- 2♦ waiting, Steps, Controls, 2♥ Bust. People have strong opinions about 2♥ for showing a bust. The players who dislike it are worried about “wrong siding” a ♥ contract. The players who like it like knowing that 2♦ is game forcing, determining if we are going to game or not immediately.

When partner opens the bidding 1-minor (1m), a jump shift to 2-Major (2M) by Responder can be used for a variety of different hand types.  Both the standard approach of a strong jump shift and the common approach of a weak jump shift leave a lot to be desired.  The modern style is for good hands to go slow, which makes a strong jump shift less appealing because it eats up valuable bidding space.  With players responding to a 1m opening bid with 1M more and more aggressively, this makes using a weak jump shift less common even if it is our agreement.  For these reasons many experienced partnerships choose to use these jumps to 2M for other constructive bidding purposes.  Let’s look at uses of these jump shifts that can help us with some problem hands for Responder.

When we use Inverted Minors to raise partner’s suit, the traditional approach is to show Major suit stoppers and determine whether we can play a notrump contract.  A more sophisticated approach is to use an artificial structure that allows Opener to show their hand type and strength and allow Responder to determine where to play the final contract (and who should be declarer in notrump).  A similar approach to this structure can be used in 1♦ – 2♣ auctions as well.  Let’s look at some of these methods in detail.

Another approach for using 2♥ and 2♠ responses to 1-minor suit opening bids is to use these bids to show a variety of problematic hands that have length in both Major suits.  This method, called Reverse Flannery, is particularly effective after a 1♦ opening bid.  It originally comes from Precision where 1♦ is the only “natural” 1-minor opening bid.  Let’s look at how this works and see what types of hands these agreements can help us bid better.

When partner opens the bidding in a suit at the 1-level and the next player overcalls 1NT, we want to have a system that allows us to deal with this interference effectively.  With a good hand (which is somewhat rare in this auction), we make a penalty double.  With a poor hand that is relatively balanced, we likely want to stay out of the auction and simply pass.  It is the distributional hands with some values, but less than 10 HCP, where we are likely to want to compete in the bidding.  One way to make it easier to bid with these distributional hands is to use a system similar to what we do when the opponents open 1NT.  Let’s look at what systems we should use in these auctions and how our system varies based on which suit partner opened. 

When we find a Major suit fit and we are interested in game (specifically in the auction 1M – 2M), we want to have a good way to explore or invite game.  The traditional way to do this is to ask for help in a side suit, using a Help Suit Game Try, HSGT.  We additionally have 2NT available to make a general try for game (some play it as trump suit GT) and a raise to 3-Major to mean 1-2-3 Stop (or generally quantitative/general GT.)  This structure is reasonably effective in exploring game.  But it has two significant downsides:

When the auction begins 1X – 1Y – 1NT (where X and Y are different suit bids), the modern treatment is to play Two-Way New Minor Forcing.  This approach uses both 2♣* and 2♦* as artificial and forcing bids by Responder.  2♦* is an artificial game forcing bid, while 2♣* is generally used to start invitational bidding sequences.

New Minor Forcing is an excellent convention for continuing the auction when Opener has shown a balanced hand that is weaker than opening 1NT. But after a New Minor Forcing bid, the auction often gets complicated if we don’t go straight to game.  It can be confusing whether we are inviting game or trying to make a slam try – which bids are forcing and which bids are non-forcing?  2-Way New Minor Forcing is an upgrade to New Minor Forcing that allows Responder to better describe their hand and simplify and clarify the rest of the auction. 

The concept of having a conventional bid like Drury available to show a limit raise in support of partner’s Major suit when we are a passed hand is a regular part of most partnerships’ passed hand bidding structure.  Given that making a 2/1 bid into a minor suit is not that attractive (or even possible!) by a passed hand, it makes sense to allocate both 2♣ and 2♦ as artificial raises of Opener’s third seat (or fourth seat) Major suit opening bid.  Many partnerships that play Drury play 2-Way Drury, using one bid to show a 3-card limit raise and the other a 4-card limit raise.  But a more sophisticated structure can allow us to describe even more hand types in the same bidding space.

When we are interested in slam in a suit contract but have a void in one of the side suits, it adds some complexity to our slam bidding.  We may be able to make a slam missing two Aces (or a grand slam missing an Ace), if partner does not have the Ace opposite our void.  When exploring slam, we want to know if partner has that Ace or has the “good Aces”, the ones opposite our losers.  One way that we find out about the location of partner’s Aces is by using control showing bids. This is especially effective if we use them to show first round control (if we play that our control showing bids could be 1st or 2nd round, then we know less about which Aces partner hold).  There is a gadget that we can use in some auctions that allows us to try to solve this problem.  This convention, called Exclusion Keycard, asks partner for their number of Keycards (or Aces if we play Blackwood), excluding one particular Ace – the place where we are void. This Exclusion allows us to find out if partner has enough of the “right Aces” for us to make slam. 

Kickback is a convention that can make slam bidding easier, in that it gives us more space to ask partner for the Queen of trump, but it can also cause problems for us in the bidding.  Any time we make a game contract (like 4♥ or 4♠) a conventional bid, there is danger that we have an expensive mixup with partner.  Here we look at some classic danger auctions that may come up if we choose to play Kickback and then discuss some of the common partnership agreements or philosophies for how to handle these dangerous auctions.

One of our most commonly used tools for determining if we should bid slam or not is Keycard Blackwood. The most popular version of this is 1430 Keycard. This tool allows us to exchange a lot of useful information with partner.  We attempt to determine how many of the 5 Keycards we have, plus we also hope to be able to determine if we have the Queen of the trump suit. When ♠ is the trump suit, then we have plenty of bidding space to communicate, but when lower-ranking suits are the trump suit, using 4NT to ask for Keycards leaves us little room to exchange information without getting the auction too high.  To fix this problem, some partnerships use Minorwood for their minor suit Keycard auctions, but this does not solve our problem in the ♥ suit. There is another approach, called Kickback, that tries to solve this problem. Let’s see how this works.

In an Ace-asking auction, when we make the follow-up bid to ask partner about their Kings, we usually do so to investigate a grand slam (though some partnerships do this in order to determine if 6NT is good contract).  Most partnerships start with the agreement that they answer this question by showing their number of Kings.  But sometimes, a Grand Slam is not about partner having 2 or 3 Kings, but about them having the right single King.  This “right King” is often the one opposite our long suit – allowing us to produce a large number of tricks.  To get this information, many partnerships evolved their King-showing methods from “number of Kings” to “Specific Kings.”  Here we look at how we can use Specific Kings in a variety of our Ace-asking auctions.

When we move from playing Blackwood to Keycard Blackwood, we improve our slam bidding by including a discussion of the trump King and Queen.  Playing Keycards (let’s say 1430), then partner’s answer to our 4NT ask sometimes tells us if they hold the trump Queen and other times does not.  In the latter case we need to be able to ask partner if they hold the trump Queen, as we do not want to bid a slam missing a Keycard and the trump Queen.  Let’s look at how we ask partner about the trump Queen in a variety of different auctions.

Jacoby 2NT is a useful convention, but many players choose to try to improve it.  The modern expert 2NT response to a 1M opening showing a limit raise or better (LR+), instead of game forcing, has many different inventors and advocates.  In Europe, it is known as Limit Sternberg while in America, Larry Cohen popularized a similar approach.  Let’s see how this works and how it can help improve our bidding.  This one is fun for system bidding fans!

When we preempts the bidding they cannot have 3 or 4 keycards. So it does not make sense to have a keycard system that shows these. Here we look at an improvement in steps and in how we ask.

When Opener makes a jump shift into a new suit with their second bid, it is a strong bid that creates a game forcing auction. This is a good bid because it ensures we reach game, but it is a bad bid because it eats up a lot of bidding space without fully describing our distribution. This is a problem. One of the most difficult opening hands to describe to partner is the unbalanced single-suited (one 6+card suit) hand with 18-19 HCP.  This is one of the strongest hands that does not open the bidding 2♣.  With this hand we usually open our suit at the 1-level and after partner responds at the 1-level, we lie in a minor suit.  If our one suit is a Major, then we show our strength by making a jump shift into 3♣, even when we have very few ♣ (as few as 2 cards.)  With this bid we create a game forcing auction (showing our values), but we distort our shape (partner expects that we have at least 4 cards in the ♣ suit). This can cause some confusion with partner if they have a large fit for our ♣ suit.  We would like to have a way to let partner know that this jump shift is done on a single-suited hand, not on a two-suited hand.  Let’s look at a system that helps us improve our jump shift methods.

Balanced hand bidding is relatively easy. We can usually describe our hand to partner by opening 1NT or rebidding 1NT. This lets partner know both our points and our hand type with either our first bid (when we open 1NT, the best situation) or with our second bid (when we rebid 1NT).  However, if we have a big balanced hand then we need to have tools for describing our hand as well.  These usually involve the use of 2NT – as a rebid, an opening bid, or even a rebid after having opened the bidding 2♣.  But this does not solve all our bidding problems when we have these large balanced hands.  Let’s look at these auctions in detail, see some of the issues, and then look at a useful gadget called Kokish to help us bid better.

When partner makes a bid and we choose to bid a suit of our own, it is called a freebid. In most normal situations freebids show values (called positive freebids) and are often forcing 1-round. We’ve all heard the saying -- a new suit is forcing by an unpassed hand.  Unfortunately, this is not always true, but it is often our agreement. Let’s look at freebids made by a passed hand and see how the fact that we have already passed changes these situations.

Jumping in the auction eats up a lot of bidding space, which is likely to make communicating with partner more difficult.  Since our jump bid may make future communication more difficult, it should have a specific meaning.  When partner opens the bidding, Responder’s jump shifts can be used to show a variety of different types of hands.  We need to decide, as a partnership, which ones we want to use. We will choose different agreements for different situations.