Lesoon 4(a) - Opening one of a suit

How responder announces a trump fit

With a good 12 to 21 points (= HCP + length points), you open one of a suit unless your hand qualifies for an opening of 1NT or 2NT.

Which suit do you open?

• The popular bidding method you will use is 'Five-card majors, longer minor'.
• As the best trump suit is usually the one in which your side has the most cards, the basic principle is to open your longest suit.
• And if you have two equally long suits (here meaning five cards or more), open the higher-ranking suit, regardless of the relative strength of the suits.
• An opening bid of 1♥ or 1♠ (the major suits) guarantees a minimum of five cards (hence the label 'Five-Card Majors')
• If your hand does not contain a five-card or longer major (four is not enough), you must open your longer minor suit (clubs or diamonds) even if it is only a 3-card suit.
• With four cards in each minor and no five-card major, open 1♦.
• With three cards in each minor and no five-card major, open 1. 

Finding the trump suit

The main purpose of bidding suits is to find a trump fit, preferably in a major. A suit fit of eight cards or more between the partnership is a comfortable majority.

When do we have a trump fit?

• When opener bids one of a major (1M), responder knows there is a fit when holding three cards in opener's major, which must be at least five cards long.

• When opener bids one of a minor (1m), responder knows there is a certain trump fit only when holding five or more cards in opener's suit, which may be only three cards long.

• When opener bids notrumps, responder will know there is a suit fit with a six-card suit, as opener must hold at least two of every suit in a balanced hand. 

Announcing a suit fit

When partner has opened one of a major suit, responder usually tells opener at once when there is a suit fit by also bidding the opened suit. This is called raising opener's suit. And the strength of responder's hand determines how high to raise.

To assess this strength in the light of the known trump fit, the responder assigns distributional Points (DP) for such attractive  features as shortages:

• For a void add 5 points
• For a singleton add 3 points
• For a doubleton add 1 point

Next responder adds HCP and DP together to find the total points (TP).