Bid Outside the Box
Jan Eric Larsson
Today’s bidding systems have grown from When our side is weaker. the early days of contract bridge. Most of When the deal is fairly equal in strength. the time, you try to exchange information When there are wilder distributions. about high cards and distribution while naming plausible final contracts. Let us look at each of these situations and see what first principles we would wish for West East in a bidding system. 1h1 1s2 2s3 4s4 Our Side is Stronger First assume that our side holds most of the 1) “I think I can make one heart.” high card strength, and that the distributions 2) “I have spades.” are reasonably balanced, (or at least not 3) “If so we can make two spades.” extreme). 4) “Then we can make four spades.” In this case we want to conduct precise and Of course, many conventions and artificial constructive bidding to find the correct part bids have been invented, but the basis score, game, or slam. At the same time, we remains. Most bids show extra length or do not want to give away more information strength and name a potential final contract. than necessary to the defense. I propose the In the sequence above, 1s is the only following principles, (nothing new here). forcing bid. Keep Low with Strong Hands What would be the result if we tried first to In constructive bidding, we need to preserve formulate general principles for what a bidding space and keep the level low. Each bidding system should accomplish, and then extra bid gives us twice as many sequences designed the system from scratch, based on to use in the search for the best contract. those principles? The Weaker Hand Should Tell This question has been asked many times When a stronger and a weaker hand meet, before. Here are my suggestions. the weaker hand should describe itself to the stronger one. It is easier to tell about fewer Bidding Principles features, and it is easier for the one who sees What do we want a bidding system to be most of the strength to make good decisions. like? Here are some simple criteria: The Stronger Hand Should Declare Precise in constructive bidding. It is also good if the stronger hand becomes Aggressive in competition. declarer. The lead will come towards the Easy to remember. hand with more high cards, and it is more difficult for the defense if less of the This is probably so obvious that no one will strength is visible in dummy. If the weaker object. But let us look at these criteria at hand has described itself in the bidding, it is work in different types of situations. The also better if it ends up as dummy. situations I have in mind are: Analysis When our side is stronger, (and the deal Natural systems are only half good is reasonably balanced). according to the above principles. One
1 (10) advantage in Standard American and similar s A-Q-5-3 s K-8-7-4-2 systems is that an opening bid promises a h K-8 ┌─┐ h 7-5 fairly strong hand, and that this hand d K-Q-7 └─┘ d A-2 immediately grabs a potential trump suit. c A-6-4-3 c 10-9-8-2 We want the stronger hand to declare. In a natural system, the bidding could go: Five-card majors may have a small advantage over four-card majors, since the West East bidding starts lower with some balanced 1c 1s hands. 3s 4s
But there are also several weaknesses. First, East grabs the spades and the contract may we open too high with many strong hands. go down with a heart lead. For example, the opening bid 2N is bad. With 20-21 points, the bidding is already at In 5542, the bidding could go: the three level, and the strong hand is describing itself. The same goes for a West East forcing 2c, especially in the sequence 2c – 1c 1h1 2d; 2N. 3s 4s
There are more examples of bad sequences 1) Transfer to spades. in the second round, for example, 1c – 1d; 2N. A jump in a suit also tends to violate the West becomes declarer and the contract is principle of saving space, for example, 1h – clearly better. 1s; 3h and we have preempted ourselves. In a strong club system, the bidding may go: Recently, the so-called 5542 system has become popular, especially in Europe. In West East this system, strong balanced hands, (17-19), 1c1 1d2 are opened 1c, and after that responder uses 1N3 2h4 transfers on the one level. In this way, you 2s 3c can avoid raising the level with a strong 4s pass balanced hand. Another advantage with this method is the use of transfers after 1c, 1) 16+ which increases the chances that the stronger 2) 0-7 hand becomes declarer. 3) 16-18 balanced 4) transfer In my opinion, Culbertson’s most brilliant invention was to make 1-over-1 and 2-over- If we could manage to build a working 1 forcing. At the same time, these bids also system around the idea, it seems that a weak are a major weakness in most natural responder should use transfers, or bid systems. If opener is strong (16-20) and shorter suits first. An interesting idea would responder is weak (6-10), it would be much be a structure where the responses mean better if responder described his hand and either 6-12 and a transfer, or 13+ and a opener only listened, and if responder could natural suit. avoid naming good suits first. For example:
2 (10) One possible solution is to use circular describes his hand (with mostly artificial transfer responses at the one level. It works step responses). as follows: Precision has one weakness, the natural suit 1c 1d 6+ four or more hearts responses, but that is easy to fix, by using 1h 6+ four or more spades positive transfer responses: 1s 6+ balanced 1N 6+ four or more diamonds 1c 1d 0-7 1d 1h 6+ four or more spades 1h 8+ five or more spades 1s 6+ balanced or clubs 1s 8+ no five-card suit 1N 6+ four or more hearts 1N 8+ five or more clubs 2c 8+ five or more diamonds 1h 1s 6+ balanced or minor 2d 8+ five or more hearts 1N 6+ four or more spades After a positive response, opener’s relay is a 1s 1N 6-10 negative Beta asking bid, that is, asking for controls.
The subsequent bidding is the same as in a In our own strong club system, the natural system, but after opening 1c or 1d, Cottontail Club, responder uses transfers in opener shows a minimal balanced hand by a circle between hearts, spades, and completing the transfer, while bidding 1N balanced hands after 1c – 1d. If opener bids shows 18-19 balanced. hearts or spades, it is taken out of the transfer circle. For example: Using these responses, responder avoids grabbing his own four-card suit as trump, West East and does not immediately wrong-side a 1c 1d contract where opener may be strong and 1h ? responder very weak. Now, 1s by responder shows a balanced Another idea along the same lines is to use hand, while 1N shows spades. combined weak and strong jump shifts, where the strong version is natural and the We have also switched the positive transfer weak is a transfer. For example: responses so that 1N shows hearts and 2d shows clubs. In this way, responder avoids West East grabbing notrump when holding a club suit. 1h 2s A Polish Idea Here, East shows either 12+ and a good six- However, 1c is not the lowest opening bid. card spade suit, or 4-10 and a long club suit. We forgot pass! The pass gives us twice as Opener will complete the transfer with a many sequences up to a certain level, when minimum opening had. compared to 1c.
Strong 1c In the eighties, a number of strong pass For strong hands, I am quite convinced that systems proliferated, and many of them Precision and other strong club systems are came from Poland. superior. The opener starts with 1c and responder describes himself. If you use the The theoretically most interesting Polish “Greek alphabet” asking bids, opener asks weak opening system is Delta. The opening (and grabs trump suits), while responder bids are as follows:
3 (10) pass 13+ all distributions This is, without doubt, a negative effect that 1c 8-12 no shortness impacts all conventional bids. My opinion is 1d 0-7 all distributions that the advantages of having the strong 1h 8-12 short h hand as declarer and the weak, “sold” hand 1s 8-12 short s as dummy, outweighs this drawback. 1N 8-12 short d and five in a major 2c 8-12 short d and no major As a counter, you may decide that partner’s 2d 8-12 short c and no major pass (or redouble) invites our side to play in 2h 8-12 short c, 5+ hearts the doubled denomination, while other bids 2s 8-12 short c, 5+ spades continue the constructive exchange. 2N 8-12 short c, 55+ in majors Our Side is Weaker “Short” means singleton or void. After an Let us now look at the case when our side is initial pass, responder uses the same method, the weaker one. Here, the objectives are but with the point limit 6-10 or 11+ instead. completely different. The two things we want to achieve are to find a fit and bid this We will not look at the continuations, but as high as possible, and to preempt the just note that there is a relay system where opponents in general. Again, we do not want the stronger hand bids the nearest bid and to give away more information than we have the weaker hand describes itself, using to. I propose the following criteria. artificial methods. Open as Often as Possible The two creators of the Polish weak opening It is a clear advantage to be the first side to systems, Lukasz Slawinski and Stanislaw tell something about our distribution, in Ruminski, have a clear philosophy, where order to find a potential fit. pass is used as the strong opening bid, because it is the lowest bid, and a weak East dealer, East-West vulnerable responder describes his hand by bidding short suits, so as not to grab trump suits. s Q-8-7-3 Likewise, a weak opener bids short suits. h J-9 Delta really follows our stated principles. d J-4 c J-10-6-3-2 Tips for the Defense Against strong club and pass, it is a good s 6-4-2 s J-9 idea to overcall on weak hands, to remove h A-K-2 ┌─┐ h Q-10-8-6-3 bidding space. But since responder gets d K-8-6-3 └─┘ d A-Q-9-5 extra bids (pass and double), you have to get c A-7-4 c 9-8 in with at least 1s versus a strong club and 1d versus a strong pass. s A-K-10-5 h 7-5-4 In my experience, it is good to overcall with d 10-7-2 two of a minor. It is low enough that the c K-Q-5 opponents often prefer to bid, rather than look for a penalty double, but high enough West North East South to steal valuable bidding space. pass 1s pass 2s pass pass A Drawback with Artificial Methods pass There is a drawback with the methods suggested so far, namely that they give the South opens a four-card spade. West’s opponents a chance to double the artificial distribution is not ideal for a take-out bids to show a suit or recommend a lead. double, and partner has passed, so West
4 (10) passes. East is too weak to enter at the three Side suits are allowed. There is no level. West leads the ace of hearts and East- reason that the opponents should know West wins two hearts, two diamonds, and that a side suit breaks well. the ace of clubs. North-South writes 110 in the protocol, while East-West can make 4h. The same goes for higher preempts. Assume The example is from Hughes, Building a that you pick up, non-vulnerable: Bidding System, 2005. S Q-J-5-3 h 4 d Q-J-10-9-5 c 10-6-2 However, there are two drawbacks to opening aggressively. Often, the opponents This is a good preempt. Open 3d. You have are the stronger side and get the final few enough points that our side will not contract. In these cases, the less you have have a playable contract in spades. told declarer about the distribution, the better. And if partner is the strong hand, you The same principle says that the weaker an do not want to preempt him. opening bid is, the less information it should give away. Open High with Weak Hands Thus, the theory is that you should open West dealer, North-South vulnerable high with weak hands, or not open at all. This is the idea behind weak two openings s K and higher-level preempts. h 9-4-3 d 7-6-3-2 Weak Openings Should be Non-Specific c K-J-7-5-2 I think standard theory is wrong about what a weak opening bid should look like. It is s Q-J-8-6-4 s A-5-3-2 usually recommended that a weak two h J-10-7-6-5-2 ┌─┐ h Q-8 opening should fulfill demands like: d K └─┘ d 8-5-4 c 6 c Q-10-9-8 Narrow point interval, say 6-10 HCP. Six-card suit. s 10-9-7 At least one of A, K or Q. h A-K No four-card major on the side. d A-Q-J-10-9 c A-4-3 The motivation for this is to make the weak two opening useful for constructive bidding, West North East South so that partner does not suffer, in case he is 1s pass 3s 4d the strong hand at the table. pass 5d pass pass pass In my opinion, this reasoning is all wrong. The only reason for opening a weak two is In the Spring Nationals 1992, Paul Soloway that we hope that the opponents have the opened 1s as West. The lead was the six of highest contract. What we actually want is to hearts. Declarer, David Feldman, played open as high as we dare, and show as little spades to East’s ace, and concluded that useful information as possible. West must have either the king of diamonds or queen of clubs to open. He laid down the Here are my criteria for a weak two opening: ace of diamonds and made the contract.
The weaker the better. In my opinion, the main error is that East- Any five-card suit will do, and maybe West used super-weak opening bids in the even a reasonable four. majors on the one level. Note the difference if West had opened 2s showing 0-9 points
5 (10) and any five cards in spades. Let us assume You often cannot risk a bid after a natural that the rest of the bidding would have been preempt, but now you can use a probing the same. Declarer has no particular reason double. to assume the king of diamonds or queen of clubs to be with West. Versus 2d Multi you can use the following defense: Many systems open one of a five-card major with as little as eight points. In the Swedish X 11-14 balanced or 18+ Magic Diamond, you open one in a major on 2h/s 11-17 natural a four-card suit and 8-11 points. In the 2N 15-17 balanced Polish strong pass system Regres, you open one of a major on 3-4 cards and 8-12 points. Against a natural weak 2s you can hardly All these systems aim to be aggressive, but venture a double with 11-14 balanced. The in the five-card major case, you have told 2s opening will also preempt hearts, which the opponents that one of the suits does not is not the case with 2d Multi. belong to them. In Magic Diamond this is less clear, and in Regres, the opened suit Assume that you hold the following hand, may be the opponents’ best trump (!). and your right-hand opponent opens. Regres is better than Magic Diamond is better than super weak five-card majors. S A-10-2 h K-J-5-3 d Q-9-6-4 c Q-6
Transfer Preempts and Multi If the opening bid is 2s, it is dangerous to Now assume that we open a preempt, and enter the bidding. A-10 of spades may be that partner holds the strong hand. two defensive tricks, while three diamonds According to our proposed principles, or hearts can play out very badly. shouldn’t we describe our hand, since it is the weaker one, and use transfers? But if the opponents open 2d Multi, the above hand is ideal for a probing double. There are several conventions based on this You risk almost nothing, and if two idea, for example transfer preempts and 2d diamonds actually is the best contract for the Multi. opponents, they have no easy way of finding that out. Again, I think that the reasoning is wrong. The entire idea behind a preemptive bid is Preemptive Bids Should Be Natural that the opponents have the highest contract. The conclusion is that preemptive bids If we want to bid something constructively, should be natural. It does not matter that the we should open low. weaker hand grabs the trump suit. We are not supposed to play anyway. If the opponents have no defense against transfer preempts, no damage is done by the If the opponents have a good defense against transfer. They will be as preempted anyway. Multi and transfer preempts, we give them But assume they use a defense like this: unnecessary opportunities to enter the bidding with medium hands. X weak takeout or 18+ cuebid strong takeout We can also note another thing. If you want to use transfer preempts or Multi, your The cuebid is a bid in the shown suit. hands should tend to be constructive. If you prefer really weak, undisciplined preempts Suddenly the opponents have the chance to (Bergen-style), they should be natural. distinguish between some important hand types. Most important is the weak takeout.
6 (10) A current fashion in Sweden is to combine hand, we cannot yet guess what side will Multi with semi-constructive bids of 2h/s have the highest contract. showing 10-13 and a six-card suit. Here, it may be better to switch the meanings, so Thus, it makes sense to start frequently and that 2d contains the 10-13 hands, while the low, but also to be a bit unspecific, until we direct 2h/s are weak. It will be more know who holds the balance of the points. difficult to handle the constructive bidding after 2d, but much more difficult for well- In this interval, I think four-card majors are prepared opponents to handle the natural more efficient than five-card majors, since weak twos. they will discover more trump fits, especially if responder raises on three-card Another modern idea is to let 2d Multi be support. On the other hand, five-card majors either weak majors or strong minors. In this will gain on some 5-4 fits that can be raised case, 2d may be 16-19 with strong to the three level immediately. diamonds. This may be a way of battling the weak double. A pass from responder can Five-Card Majors suggest to play 2d doubled. When using five-card major openings, you immediately grab a potential trump suit, and Constructive or Preemptive? you clearly tell the opponents that your suit Which is the more important objective, to is not for them. Thus, it is good to apply this bid constructively to the optimal contract, or to strong openings hands, from 12-13 hcp to try and prevent the opponents from and upwards. It is a bad idea to open five- finding their optimal contract? There are two card majors on very low point ranges. obvious truths. You must be able to reach good contracts, and the practical answer to Three-Card Minors the question is usually decided by personal If you open five-card majors, you need some style. way of handling weak, balanced hands, and the most popular method is three-card However, over 70 % of all boards played in minors. With a strong hand, you open low, modern bridge involve bids from both sides. but you are more vulnerable to opponent According to hard statistics, competitive intervention. bidding is more important. In my opinion, the conclusion is obvious. You must think South dealer, East-West vulnerable about preempting your opponents, and you can count on undisturbed bidding relatively s 7-5 seldom. Being aggressive will pay off, and h A-Q-5 staying low is less advantageous than it may d Q-J-10-8-4 seem. In today’s modern bridge, you need to c 10-9-4 bid as much as you dare! s A-10-4 s K-9-3 Intermediate Opening Hands h K-J-8-3 ┌─┐ h 10-6-4-2 So far we have formulated some principles d A-K-6 └─┘ d 7-5 for strong hands, where probability says that c A-3-2 c K-J-8-6 our side is likely to have the highest contract, and for weak hands, where the s Q-J-8-6-2 opponents most probably should declare. Let h 9-7 us turn to the intermediate opening hands, d 9-3-2 around 11-15 points. c Q-7-5
It is not so difficult to see what we should do with such hands. Just by looking at our own
7 (10) West North East South We also open a 5332 with a three-card suit, pass which is higher than the five-card suit, to 1c 2d X pass block out the opponents’ suit. 3N pass pass pass West dealer, no-one vulnerable Jill Meyers opened 1c and Sabine Auken overcalled 2d. Randi Montin doubled to s E-9-7-5 show strength and one or two majors. But h kn-6 which one? Meyers took her chances with d K-10-5 3N, which went down after a diamond lead. c D-8-7-2 This example from Venice Cup 2001 in Paris shows how vulnerable three-card s D-10-4 s kn-6 minors can be. h E-10-9-8-3 ┌─┐ h K-7-4 d kn-9 └─┘ d D-6-4-2 If you have a weak hand, a three-card c K-5-4 c E-10-9-3 opening may “steal” the opponents’ trump, and if they get the final contract, you have s K-8-3-2 not given away very much information. h D-5-2 Thus, you can very well lower the opening d E-8-7-3 strength demands with three-card minors. c kn-6
Three-Card Openings and Canapé West North East South In Standard American and Precision, you 1s pass 1N pass can sometimes steal the opponents’ best 2h pass pass pass trump suit when opening one in a minor (one diamond in Precision). This is fine, but The typical contract is North-South making would it not be even better to steal the two spades. East-West can make two hearts, opponents’ major suit? but spades are higher. The canapé opening makes it more difficult for North-South to The old idea of opening your next longest find their spade suit. suit, canapé, is nowadays quite unusual, but it may deserve a better destiny than oblivion. Drawbacks of Canapé There is, of course, a drawback with If an opening bid shows 3-4 cards in the suit, opening the next longest suit. Sometimes we partner can usually decide whether it is a will miss a good fit that everyone else finds candidate trump suit or not, but the directly after their opening bid. On the other opponents cannot deduce very much. The hand, we find some 4-4 and 3-5 major fits bid has a different information value for the faster than the rest of the field. different sides. A three-card suit has a higher chance of stealing the opponents’ trump, the One popular treatment is to always open the weaker the opening bid is. major first, whether it is a 5-4 or 4-5. You will find more fits, but the drawback is that In Cottontail, we open a 54xx hand with the you will need another round to tell about four-card suit, if the four-card suit is a your actual distribution. major, and with a strong four-card diamond and a weak five-card major. With a strong Unspecific Overcalls five-card major and a weak diamond, we In Jannersten and Wohlin, Winning Pairs’ open the major and rebid it. Technique, 1975, (in Swedish), the authors suggest one level overcalls on three-card suits, (especially spades), to find a fit, to
8 (10) recommend a lead, and sometimes to steal 1h/s 14+ five-card suits the opponents’ trump. 1N 11-13 balanced 2c/d/h/s 8-13 five-card suits S K-J-8 h 6-2 d 7-5-4-2 c A-K-J-6 The one level openings are unusually strong, When the right hand opponent opens with and all responses are based on transfers. 1d, Jannersten and Wohlin recommend a 1s Apart from the latter, this system looks a bit overcall. like Fantunes, the system of Fulvio Fantoni and Claudio Nunes. The system is much An advantage with such an overcall is that it more aggressive than Standard American, is unspecific. When the opponents bid on, because of the five-card weak two openings. you have only given away three cards in spades. That is not so helpful for declarer to By the way, I have assumed that all systems know. use 2N as a weak opening with 5-5 in the minors, and natural preempts. Distributional Hands I have no new ideas about distributional An alternative is to go for weaker openings, hands. Zia Mahmood describes so-called but then the one-level openings should be “Pakistani Preempts” in his book Bridge My less specific, so let us use three-card Way, 1992. The idea is to use “multi” openings and canapé, (mean opening 3.13): preempts to show a number of extra features, but the advantage may be offset by 1c/d/h/s 10+ three-card suits allowing the opponents the weak, probing 1N 14-16 balanced double. Most likely, bidding as high as you 2c/d/h/s 0-9 five-card suit dare and hoping that the opponents will guess wrongly, is the optimal method. The one level openings show at least three cards, and are combined with canapé. Mean Opening Responder does not use transfers, because For each system below, I have calculated the he is often stronger than opener. Note that mean opening, where pass is 0.0, 1c is 1.0, we open above 1h on average. This system 1d is 2.0, etc. This can be done by is rather like the Roman Club of Blue Team multiplying the level of each opening bid fame. Maybe we could call it Aggressive with its frequency and adding up the values Roman? for all openings in the system. I wrote a program to do this in the nineties. Standard My guess is that the aggressive version is American has a mean opening of 1.48, that better, simply because it is going to gain in is, right between 1c and 1d. The mean many competitive situations. Competitive opening gives an idea of how aggressive the will beat constructive. system is. Of course, it says nothing about other aspects, such as how precise the Well, how would a strong club system look? system is, or how much information is gives First the constructive version, (mean away. opening 3.0):
Some New Bidding Systems 1c 17+ all distributions If we try to apply the above principles, what 1d 12-16 preparatory would a bidding system look like? First, let 1h/s 12-16 five-card suits us look at a natural system with a 1N 14-16 balanced constructive flair, (mean opening 2.85): 2c 12-16 six-card suit 2d/h/s 6-11 five-card suits 1c 14+ clubs or balanced 1d 14+ four-card suit
9 (10) The positive responses to 1c should use on the one level. Thus, we will only approve transfers, and responder should use transfers the unspecific version. In fact, this system is after 1c – 1d. Transfer responses should be very much like the Polish system Regres. used after the 1d/h/s and 2c openings too. Note, though, that the mean opening of Regres is lower than that of Aggressive But we can also design a weaker version, Roman and Cottontail Club. which becomes more aggressive, (mean opening 3.55): The Delta system described earlier is precise but passive, with a mean opening of only 1c 15+ all distributions 1.67. It is actually used by responder in 1d/h/s 10-14 three-card suits Regres, after opener’s initial pass. It has one 1N 10-12 balanced clear drawback, namely that most opening 2c 10-14 five-card suit bids are weak (8-12) and show a singleton or 2d/h/s 0-9 five-card suits void. Thus, it often gives away too much information when the opponents declare. Transfer responses should be used after 1c, but not after the other opening bids. The one Conclusions level openings are combined with canapé The current trend in bidding systems is, if except when clubs are involved. The 1N anything, to move away from the artificial opening should be strong when vulnerable, experiments of the seventies and eighties, for example 15-17. This is actually the and back to more traditional methods. Five- Cottontail Club, the system I play myself. card majors seem to gain popularity slowly but inevitably. This approach can be made ACBL legal in the following way, (mean opening 3.54): Several ideas I propose in this article, like canapé and bidding three-card suits, may 1c 15+ all distributions seem old-fashioned or quaint. They are 1d 10-14 three-card suits certainly not becoming more popular. My 1h/s 10-14 four-card suits hope is only to spawn some thinking outside 1N 10-12 balanced of the current trends. 2c 10-14 five-card suit 2d/h/s 0-9 five-card suits The reader may have noticed that this was not a presentation of one optimally designed I think that strong club systems are superior system, but at least five. Personally, I to natural systems in the long run, because believe that either Cottontail or Regres are the limited opening bids are easier to use in the best systems. The artificiality of Regres both uncontested and contested auctions. makes it difficult to play with current rules. Therefore the aggressive version of strong Finally, let us look at a strong pass system, club probably is best in practice. (mean opening 2.66): The ideas presented here are neither mine pass 13+ all distributions nor new. Rather, I owe a lot to many bridge 1c 8-12 hand with shortness theoreticians and writers, and especially to 1d 0-7 all distributions Slawinski and Ruminski. I only hope I have 1h/s 8-12 3-4 card suit contributed some easy arguments for and 1N 8-12 a five-card major against different design principles for 2c/d 8-12 five-card suits bidding systems. I would also like to thank 2h/s 0-9 five-card suits my partner Anu Uus for experiences gained in playing the Cottontail Club. Since the limited opening bids are as weak as 8-12, it is not good if they show long suits C d h s
10 (10)