Major suit opening bids promise a 5-card suit, which gives you an advantage in all auctions but especially competitive auctions.
Minor suit opening bids promise a 5-card suit or a 4-4-4-1 shape. This gives us a huge advantage over those pairs who open a 3-card or 2-card minor, particularly in competitive auctions. When responder has 4-card support, he is safe to compete to at least the three level, knowing that opener has a 5-card suit or a 4-4-4-1 shape (which plays well opposite a 4-card fit or better).
Note: The 1
opening may be 17+ hcp balanced.
But, in a competitive auction, if responder has club support
he is safe to assume that opener has a genuine club suit and to bid accordingly.
If opener doesn't have clubs then he will have 17+ hcp and will be strong enough to correct to a sensible NT contract.
In every other bidding system, when you have a balanced hand outside your 1NT range you have to open one of a suit. If your partner is too weak to respond, you will frequently find yourself playing in a silly 4-2 or 4-1 trump fit (or even a 3-2 or 3-1 trump fit if you are playing 5-card majors), and you will be wishing that, somehow, you could have got to 1NT instead. Has that ever happened to you? Yes — me too. It's sickening, isn't it?
It will never happen in the Double Club System.
All balanced hands that don't open with 1NT
open with a forcing 1
(or a forcing 2),
ensuring that we will always play in no trumps when that is the right denomination.
Silly fits do not occur, ever, when you play the Double Club System.
When opener has a balanced hand and opens 1
he almost never receives a response of 1NT,
so he can bid 1NT or 2NT himself and is guaranteed to declare the NT contract.
The Double Club System helps both opener and responder to describe their hands accurately
without risk of a premature pass from partner.
Two-level responses to 1
and 1
opening bids are game forcing.
Single raises of a minor suit opening bid are forcing for one round.
Of particular note is that when a 1 opener has a 17-19 hcp balanced hand
and receives a natural response of 1 or 1,
he can safely rebid 1NT even if he has support for responder's suit.
Responder is known to have a 5-card suit (or a strong hand),
so responder will not pass 1NT — he will at least rebid two of his suit if weak,
since he knows of at least a 7-card fit.
Opener's rebid of 1NT after a natural response is therefore, by this logic, forcing.
This means that a balanced opener can (and should) rebid 1NT even if he knows of an 8-card or better trump fit in responder's suit,
since he can correct to the known trump fit on the next round if responder does not rebid his suit.
And it therefore follows that if a 1 opener immediately supports responder's suit
he is known to have an unbalanced hand with a genuine club suit as well as the support he is showing.
When opener has a balanced hand outside the 1NT range and opens 1,
his first rebid will be 1NT or 2NT (possibly after using the Kokish Relay).
Following a 1NT or 2NT rebid by opener, responder can use our 1NT or 2NT response system,
so there is no need for a specialised checkback system or a New Minor Forcing agreement.
Note that we use our 1NT or 2NT response system even if responder made a natural bid,
as well as after an artificial 1
response.
We can no longer right side a contract in responder's suit, but the system still works.
For example, the sequence 1, 1; 1NT, 2
is a transfer to hearts, even though responder has previously bid hearts.
Responder is conveniently in the captain's seat, as he should be.
[Update March/2011]: Previously we had decreed that NT systems would be off after responder had made a natural bid. However, we have found that it is simpler and better to use the NT response systems even if responder has made a natural bid.
Author: Chris Burton
Gravesend Bridge Club