NYU BRIDGE AND SPADES CLUB

Bridge Lessons - Intermediate

RESPONDING TO PARTNER’S NT OPENER

Lesson 8

Motivation

You will notice that many of the bids we will be describing here are rather unnatural. There is a reason for this…

The motivation behind making bids over NT is usually to find a better spot than the NT opener. However, should this spot not be in NT, the responder would become the declarer. It is generally better to hide the stronger hand within a partnership so that the defense has to guess a lot more as to which high cards are in the hidden hand. Hence, the unnatural bids that are coming up.

Schools of Thought

There are two main schools of thought as to how one should respond over partner’s NT opener

School of thought 1: 4-way transfersSchool of thought 2: major transfers

What is a Transfer Bid?

A transfer bid is a bid just under the bid you wanted to make E.g. one may use a 2D bid as a transfer to 2H Notice that transfer bids can only be used over NT

openers

4-way transfers

2D transfers to 2H2H transfers to 2S2S transfers to 3C3C transfers to 3DAll transfer bids show 5+ cards in the suit

Major transfers

2D transfers to 2H2H transfers to 2S

Responder Rebids after Transfers

Pass with <8 pointsBid 3M with 6+ cards in the major and 8-9 pointsBid 4M with 6+ cards in the major and 10+ pointsBid 2NT with 5 cards in the major and 8-9 pointsBid 3NT with 5 cards in the major and 10+ pointsThe rationale here is that you can’t confirm you

want to play in a suit game after a normal transfer – partner may have only 2 cards in the major – unless you have 6+ cards in the suit

Stayman

2C bid over a 1NT opener is always asking for 4-card majors regardless of which school of though you choose to abide by

Requires 8+ points and at least 1 4-card majorOpener will rebid 2D with no 4-card majors or 2H/S

with 4-cards in those suitsResponder rebids 2NT with 8-9 points or 3NT with

10+ points if opener does not have the 4-card major you have. Opener may choose to correct to 3NT with 17 points over 2NT, 3S with 15-16 points and 4 spades over 2NT, 4S with 17 points and 4 spades over 2NT or 4S with 4 spades over 3NT

Minor Suit Stayman

2S is the minor suit staymanAlways denies 4-card majorsBid shows either of these hands:

5-4 or better in minors (some use 5-5), slam interest Minor suit signoff to play

2NT – 3S can also work as the minor suit stayman

Minor Suit Stayman

Opener rebids over minor suit stayman 2NT – no minor support 3C – club support 3D – diamond support, no club support

Responder rebids 3C/D = signoff, opener must pass 3H/S (over 3C/D) = singleton/void in the suit,

showing slam interest in the suit opener rebid 4C (over 2NT) = gerber, asking for aces

Opener rebids 4D with 0/4 aces, 4H with 1, 4S with 2 or 4NT with 3

Lebensohl

Some choose to incorporate this into their arsenal when playing minor suit stayman

1NT – 2S runs the risk of opener rebidding 3D when responder holds a bust 3C. Thus, some partnerships choose to use 1NT – 2NT as Lebensohl, signalling a bust hand with 6+ clubs. Opener must then transfer to clubs. These pairs then lose the ability to show a balanced 8-9 point hand, but most of these hands can be shown using stayman

Bergen Super Accepts

So what if opener has a good fit with responder’s favoured suit? Marty Bergen introduced super accepts to resolve this issue

Reponses to 2D (responses to 2H are similar): With 2 hearts, bid 2H With 5+ hearts, bid 4H With 4 hearts and 15 to 16- points, bid 3H With 4 hearts and 16+ to 17 points, bid a doubleton With 3 hearts including at least one honour or 4-3-3-3 hand

with 4 hearts and 17 points, and every suit soundly stopped (QJx or better), bid 2NT. Responder can bid 3NT holding only KQxxxx in hearts and nothing else, expecting opener to take 6 tricks in hearts

With anything else, bid 2H

When Not to Transfer

When you have <8 points and are balanced Generally better to play in 1NT here. Just pass…

When you have both majors to show Use Smolen (coming up)

More Advanced Tools

Texas Transfers

1NT/2NT – 4D = transfer to 4H1NT/2NT – 4H = transfer to 4SThese Texas transfers signal 6+ cards in the

suit, no interest in playing any other suit and no interest in slam.

Using Texas transfers, 1NT – 2D – 2H – 4H will then be a low-conviction slam try. Reaching the same destination (4H) by different routes (normal transfers and Texas) must mean different things, or there’s no point having more than one route

Puppet Stayman

Used over 2NT openers 3C asks for both 4- and 5-card majors in opener’s

hand Opener rebids 3D with at least one 4-card suit

Responder rebids 3H with 4+ spades and 3S with 4+ hearts. Opener can then choose 3NT, 4H or 4S

Opener rebids 3H with 5 hearts and 3S with 5 spades

Opener rebids 3NT with no 4- or 5-card major

Smolen

Holding 5-4 in majors, responder faces the dilemma between showing his 5-card major and bidding stayman

Smolen convention dictates that responder should bid stayman first. If opener rebids 2D (no 4-card major), responder jump bids in his 4-card suit E.g. holding 4 hearts and 5 spades, the bidding

sequence will be 1NT – 2C – 2D – 3H Opener then decides whether to play 3NT or 4 of

responder’s 5-card majorSmolen can only be used with 10+ points

Gerber

4C over 1NT or 2NT openers is asking for aces

Similar responses to Gerber as described in the Minor Suit Stayman section

Quantitative 4NT

Holding about 15 points over 1NT opener or 11 points over 2NT opener, you may choose to bid the quantitative 4NT bid. Opener will then up to 6NT with the upper limit of his range or pass otherwise