Some Bidding Techniques

Benjaminised (or Benji) Acol(Part II)

Benji Acol Becoming very popular Pre-emptive at the 2 level instead of

3 Note:

Must be agreed beforehand with partner Need a new way of bidding strong Twos No change to other parts of your system

1 Level and 3 Level openings remain as they were

Benji Acol

Invented by Albert Benjamin In a nutshell:

2 is an ‘Acol Two’ in any suit 2 is 23+ points or Game Force (Acol 2) 2 is 6-10 points and 6 Hearts 2 is 6-10 points and 6 Spades

We will discuss the weak 2 openings in this session 2 2

We dealt with the strong openings last time 2 2 And balanced hand bidding

Weak Twos

Now that your 2 & 2 openings are weak

We need to consider two aspects: HCP Strength Suit Strength

High Card Point Strength

At most 10 With 11 and a six card suit you have a

opening 1 level bid At least 6

Stretch down to 5 if all points in the long suit

With a T & 9

Strength of Suit

IT is important to have some strength

Don’t open a weak 2 if your suit is horrible

This would be a mis-description More detail:->

Strength of Suit

You should have:

TWO of the top FOUR honours or

THREE of the top SIX cards:->

Strength of Suit

Excellent

A-K-9-8-7-6K-Q-J-7-6-5A-J-T-5-4-3Q-J-T-5-4-3

Only Just

K-J-7-6-5-4A-T-9-4-3-2Q-J-8-7-6-5J-T-9-7-6-5

Bad

Q-7-6-5-4-3J-T-7-4-3-2A-T-7-6-5-4K-T-8-7-6-5

Responding to Weak Twos

The most common response is PASS With 16+ points there are 3 types of

response Change of suit 2NT Simple raise

Change of Suit Response

VERY unusual Very strong hand that doesn’t want

to play in the bid suit Forcing for one round 5+ cards

Very similar to change of suit after an opening 3

Simple Raise Response

Weak & pre-emptive NOT invitational Designed to make life difficult for the

opponents

2NT Response

The main strong option A conventional response (Ogust) Asks for more description of the

opening hand Please be more precise about

HCP strength Strength of your suit

Opener’s re-bids

After Pass - Pass After simple raise – Pass – more on

this later After change of suit –

Treat this the same as a change of suit after a 3 or 4 level pre-empt

After 2NT :--

Opener’s re-bids after 2NTSuit Quality

HCP Bid

Weak Weak 3Strong Weak 3Weak Strong 3Strong Strong 3

OR – 3NT shows exactly A-K-Q-x-x-x in the major bidI like to think of the & bid as easy to rememberFor & – bid I like higher with more HCP

Responder re-bids after 2NT is answered

With a weak 3 opening from partner continuations are often a guess

With a weak 2 you now know a lot more

And can have an educated auction BUT In this context – what is a strong

suit?

When is a suit strong? The suit is STRONG IF and ONLY IF it has TWO of the top THREE honours

K-Q-6-5-4-3 counts as strong A-J-T-9-8-7 counts as weak (With the 3 top honours between you

you’ll take 6 tricks)

When are the HCP strong? 6 – 7 is weak 9 – 10 is strong 8 is a judgement

Example

You open 2 and partner responds 2NT – now what?

KQT765

Q75

J6

76

JT9543

AK7

865

4

3 3

Example

KQJT97

876

76

64

A2

A32

A9832

AT3

32 2NT

3NT

Example

KT9873

J76

K6

64

J2

AK2

AQJ32

Q83

2 2NT

3 3

Example

KQT983

J76

K6

64

J2

AK2

AQJ32

Q83

2 2NT

3 4

Example

AK7642

543

92

63

853

2

KQ6543

J82

2 3

T

QJ976

JT87

AT7

QJ9

AKT8

A

KQ954

Summary

2 is an ‘Acol Two’ in any suit OR 21-22 Balanced

2 is 23+ points or Game Force (Acol 2)

2 is 6-10 points and 6 Hearts 2 is 6-10 points and 6 Spades 2NT is 19-20 Balanced