TWiB Lesson #592 (8 of 9)
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…
TWiB Lesson #572 (6 of 9)
When responding to partner’s 1-Major opening bid, Responder tries to apply the Law of Total Tricks (LOTT) – getting to the size of the partnership’s fit as quickly as possible. This LOTT bidding is especially effective when our side has a 9+card fit. Bergen Raises are a set of conventional bids Responder can use when responding to a 1-Major opening bid with 4+card support (at least a 9+card fit). Let’s see how this system works.
TWiB Lesson #574 (8 of 9)
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.
TWiB Lesson #575 (9 of 9)
When partner makes a bid, and we choose to bid a suit of our own, this 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 are passed changes these situations.
TWiB Lesson #577 (2 of 9)
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♣. Let’s look at a system that helps us improve our jump shift methods.
TWiB Lesson #564 (2 of 4)
We usually win tricks with little cards (other than in the trump suit) by setting up our long suits. To establish these little cards in our long suits into winners, we need to play the hand well. This requires using our large cards in the best way possible to establish our little cards. That means we need to play our combinations as best as we can, manage our transportation, and have some good luck in the way the cards divide.
TWiB Lesson #565 (3 of 4)
It is essential to stop the Declarer's attempts to take tricks with small cards in order to properly defend the contract. That means that suits that have potential winners, threat cards, must not be allowed to grow into winners. We attempt to prevent this by covering an honor with an honor (to prevent promotion) and by holding onto our cards in the opponent’s long suits – called guarding the suit.
TWiB Lesson #566 (4 of 4)
Active opening leads attempt to "go out and get" our tricks. Passive leads, on the other hand, attempt to just not give anything away or help Declarer. There are many different types of passive leads for many different situations. Here we take a look at several lead types and hands where a passive lead may or may not have the intended effect!
TWiB Lesson #576 (1 of 9)
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.
TWiB Lesson #577 (2 of 9)
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♣. Let’s look at a system that helps us improve our jump shift methods.
TWiB Lesson #558 (1 of 9)
By defining our 1NT opening bid to show 14-16 points with a balanced hand, we maintain the general strength of the opening bid while allowing ourselves to open the bidding with it more often. We discuss how you bid if you agree to play this, both as an Opener and as Responder.
TWiB Lesson #559 (2 of 9)
When LHO opens the bidding and the auction passes around to us, we are the last line of defense against the opponents buying the contract at a low level - balancing. When we balance we “borrow” some of partner’s values and add those points to our hand - usually about 3 points.
TWiB Lesson #578 (3 of 9)
When partner opens the bidding with a 2-level or 3-level preemptive opening bid then Responder may have a struggle to find the best final contract without getting the auction too high. One of the natural pressures is whether Responder risk going past 3NT to look for a fit or a better fit. Given the variability of modern preempts it can be dangerous to reach the 5-level when partner has taken an aggressive action. Here we look at a tool, called Preempt Keycard, for Responder to ask for Keycards after a preempt, but still keep the auction at a low level.
TWiB Lesson #579 (4 of 9)
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. The idea of using 1M – 2NT as LR+ accomplishes a couple of goals: 1) It opens up 1M – 3M to always be a weak call (a valuable tool for making life difficult on the opponents). 2) 1M – 2NT as LR+ approach gives away less information about the Opener’s (soon to be declarer’s) hand than Jacoby 2NT. Let’s see how this works.
TWiB Lesson #560 (3 of 9)
A balancing 1NT bid can be a wide-ranging action, about 11-15/16 points. This 5-point range is much larger than most Notrump bids and leaves partner with a more difficult bidding situation. Range Stayman is a tool that can help Advancer better determine the values of our hand and if game is a possibility.
TWiB Lesson #561 (4 of 9)
One place that we do not need a jump bid to show a weak hand is in the balancing seat. In this seat with a weak hand, say 5-8 HCP, and a long suit, we would not bid; we would simply pass the hand out. Theses bids are used to describe different, stronger hands.
TWiB Lesson #580 (5 of 9)
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.
TWiB Lesson #581 (6 of 9)
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 Kingshowing 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.
TWiB Lesson #562 (5 of 9)
When our left-hand opponent opens the bidding and the auction passes around to us, we have a big decision to make – should we get into this auction, or should we leave the opponents to play at the 1-level? We have a variety of bidding tools to help us compete in the bidding.
TWiB Lesson #582 (7 of 9)
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.
TWiB Lesson #583 (8 of 9)
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. Let’s see how we can put what we've learned into practice and navigate these tricky situations with a clear understanding of likely pitfalls.
TWiB Lesson #584 (9 of 9)
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.
TWiB Lesson #550 (1 of 8)
When RHO opens a 2-level preempt, they have started eating up our valuable bidding space. But this is just the start of their attack on us. LHO may join in the attack and raise the preempt, making our life even more difficult. When we are bidding over RHO’s 2-level preempt we should keep this in mind. We need lots of tools to deal with this situation.
TWiB Lesson #551 (2 of 8)
When the opponents open at the 4-level they put a lot of pressure on us to make difficult decisions without much room to maneuver or describe our hand. This preempt will force us to either double or overcall at a very high level. Let’s look at these options and see how we need to adjust our thinking and bidding because of the lack of available space.
TWiB Lesson #552 (3 of 8)
When the opponents open the bidding with a 3-level preempt then much of tour focus is on “Should we bid beyond 3NT?” This is especially true when we have one long minor, when we likely want to play in 3NT or 5-minor. This allows us to use 4-minor in some interesting conventional ways, just as we do vs. a 2-level preempt.
