Choosing an opening bid

Choosing an Opening Bid: Pre-emptive Openings

When you have very unbalanced hands, you don’t need to have so many points to open the bidding. We can show hands with extra-long suits that are too weak to open at the one level by opening at a higher level. It may seem a bit strange to start with a higher target when you have a weaker hand, but watch the video and the reasons we do this will become clear. After that, why not have a go at the quiz and the practice hands?

Try some hands

Hand 1

After you choose the right opening bid, your partner will raise you with three-card support. As we’ve already shown our hand perfectly, we generally never bid again after making a pre-empt, so we pass.

Hand 2

Here, again, you will only need to make one bid. Your partner will raise your suit, after which you should pass. Like with hand 1 – a bit of a theme here – look for an opportunity to get rid of a loser from your hand early on.

Hand 3

As with hand 2, your partner will raise your suit, but you do not need to make a second bid. This time, however, they are not going to raise to game, only by one level. This is not because they think you belong in game, but just to make it even more difficult for your opponents to get into the bidding, so like hand 1 you should not bid again.

Hand 4

This is a case of just one bid from you, after which everyone will pass. Can you find the right one? Think carefully about how you play dummy’s winners to make sure you don’t get stuck in the wrong hand!

Back

Pre-emptive openings

See how to show your partner that you have one of these fun hands and get in the way of your opponents at the same time.

Question 1/6

What do you think is the best opening bid here?

Opening at the two level shows six cards in your suit and 6 to 10 points. This hand is at the top end of the point range but that's ok. Spades are a great suit for pre-emptive bids because the opponents must go up a level to show any suit they want to bid. The rest of your hand is not great, with the other points in fairly short suits, so it doesn’t merit an upgrade to a one level opening.

How many spades should you open here?

With this nice 7 card suit, you definitely want to make a pre-emptive opening. Your hand is not strong enough to open at the one level, even giving yourself a couple of extra points for distribution. 2♠ would show a six card suit so that's no good either. 3♠ shows a seven card suit and a maximum of nine points, so that works well here.

Easy to see which suit to bid, but how many?

A nice 8 card suit with two honours. Definitely worth getting as much in the way as possible, especially as you have only two cards each in the major suits, so it's quite likely that your opponents will want to bid one or both of those.

Again, an obvious suit choice. At what level would you open?

With a seven card suit, 10 points is too many to open at the three level (maximum 9), especially such a good 10 points as you have here. Your points are concentrated in your two best suits and you have a singleton. With a couple of extra points for distribution this hand is worth showing as 12+ by opening 1♠. 4♠ would be ok but if your partner has a good hand you might miss a slam because they will not make another bid, thinking that your hand is quite weak and distributional.

Only a six card suit this time. What is your opening bid?

You have a 6 card suit and 6 to 10 points so with any other suit, opening at the two level would be the right thing to do. Remember though, we can't do that with clubs because we need the 2♣ opening to show another kind of hand altogether (very strong hands) so here you have to pass.

Last one of these. What is your best opening bid here?

You can't pre-empt at the two level in clubs but you can at the three level. Here you have a perfect hand for opening at the three level: 6 points and a seven card suit. Opening at the four level would show an eight card suit.

The links will take you to the Bridge Training website, where you can have a go at choosing the best opening bid. Because there are aspects of bidding that you have not yet covered, we have given you some notes on each hand that will tell you what to do after your partner’s response. You will then be able to play the hands and see if you can make your contract. Have as many goes as you like if you don’t succeed the first time.