Finding that you have eight or more cards in a major suit between you and partner is the dream. So when partner opens one heart or one spade (showing 5+ cards) and you have three or more you should tell them straight away that you have found your trump suit.

At the same time, you can give partner an extra bit of useful information about how strong your hand is so they can decide whether to aim for a part score or game contract – the panel above shows you how.

Watch the video, then once you have read the section and seen the video on responding to major suit openings without fit, take the quiz.

In an auction that goes one heart – four hearts, or 1 spade – four spades, it can be difficult for opener, when they have s stronger hand to judge whether they should be bidding on to look for a slam. So more experienced partnerships show game forcing hands with fit in a way that keeps the bidding lower, allowing room to explore.

The approach is different, depending on whether responder has 3 or 4+ card support for opener’s major and these are summarised in the panel below.

Now there is more room for both sides of the partnership to provide more information without getting too high. We will cover this in more detail in the section on cue bidding.