Responding to minor suit openings

Responding to Minor Suit Openings without 4+ Cards in a Major

You have seen in the previous step how important it is to show major suits in response to your partner’s minor suit openings. But what if you don’t have a suitable major suit holding? Bidding no trumps will often be the answer, but not always.

Try some hands

Hand 1

Your partner will open the bidding, and once you have chosen the best response, they will put you in a game contract. If you haven’t already done so, you might want to watch the video on hold-up plays, which you will find in the card play section. Think carefully before you play to the first trick!

Hand 2

This time you will open the bidding, then make a judgement, based on your partner’s response, as to whether or not to bid again. Look out for those finesses.

Hand 3

This time you will need to pick a response to your partner’s minor again. After they rebid to show a balanced hand you should pick the right game.

Hand 4

Your partner will open the bidding and you should choose a response, bearing in mind that you have an unbalanced hand. Your left hand opponent will bid, showing strength in a suit where you are weak, so when partner makes a strong raise of your suit, playing game in that suit looks much safer than 3NT. Sometimes we have to play in minor suits, despite the disadvantages!

Back

Responding to Minor Suit Openings without 4+ cards in a Major.

The fruit will talk you through when to respond in no trumps and the slightly peculiar way in which we respond in minor suits if that’s what we need to do.

Question 1/6

Penelope has opened 1♣. How should Walter respond?

If you don’t have a major suit of four or more cards when partner opens 1♣ or 1♦, you should usually respond in no trumps unless your hand is very unbalanced. This tells partner that you don’t have a major suit, and also gives them a good idea of how strong your hand is, as the point ranges for NT responses are quite defined. Here, Walter has a weak hand so he should respond in NT at the lowest level.

Same situation, but Walter’s hand is a little bit stronger. How can he tell Penelope that with his response?

Walter has a balanced hand without four cards in a major, so he should bid NT. The range for a 1NT response is 6 to 10, so that would be understating the value of his hand. 2NT shows an invitational hand, 11 or 12 points, so that does the job nicely.

Penelope has opened 1♦ this time. What is Walter’s best bid?

Another balanced hand without a four card major. This time, though, Walter knows that the partnership has enough points for game, so he should just go ahead and bid 3NT.

Walter is somewhat surprised when his partner opens 1♦, as he has so many of them himself. How should he respond?

With such an unbalanced hand and a big fit in diamonds, bidding no trumps does not seem like a good idea. Walter should raise diamonds. If you remember from the video, the principle that we call ‘inverted minors’ means that we do a slightly ‘upside down’ thing with our raises of partner’s minor, where jumping to three is weaker than bidding two of the minor. It’s like a pre-emptive bid that shows a weak, but distributional hand. With only five high card points, Walter’s hand is weak, but with that singleton, and the fit with partner, he should definitely bid, so 3♦ is the right choice.

Another nice fit with partner’s opening bid. What should Walter bid this time?

Penelope might have as few as two clubs, so they don’t necessarily have a fit in clubs, but with a very unbalanced hand and such a nice five card club suit, Walter should show his club suit. His partner might be interested in playing in clubs, for example if the opponents could have a long suit to cash in 3NT. Without a major suit to bid, raising clubs is the best description of his hand. Because he has a good hand, though, he should bid 2♣. Jumping to 3♣ would show a weak, distributional hand with long clubs.

Penelope has opened 1♦ and Walter has a game forcing, unbalanced hand without a four card major. What should he bid?

Although he can see enough points for game, when Penelope has opened the bidding, Walter should not jump straight to game in either NT or clubs. Because he has to go to the two level to show his club suit, his response is game forcing, so they must always bid to at least a game contract. After Penelope’s next bid, he will have more information on which to judge what the best contract will be.

The links will take you to the Bridge Training website, where, depending on the hand, you will either open the bidding and base your next action on partner’s response, or choose the best response to your partner’s opening bid. You will then be able to play the hand. Have as many goes as you like if you don’t get it right the first time.