UNLESS YOU HAVE AT LEAST TWO MORE CARDS IN OPENER’S SECOND SUIT THAN IN THEIR FIRST, GIVE PREFERNCE FOR THE FIRST

This can be hard to make yourself do, especially if you have nicer cards in the second suit but you just have to trust the probabilities.

If your hand is invitational, you get a little more choice in the matter. You can show fit by bidding one of their suits (usually the second because you would often have shown fit with the first already if you had it) at the 3 level, or you can show a balanced hand that doesn’t have fit with either suit by bidding 2NT.

If you have a game forcing hand it’s really a question of thinking about which is likely to be the best game.  If you have no fit with either of partner’s suits but you have good cards in the other two suits, then 3NT is probably your best game, so you can just bid it. If partner has shown spades and hearts, and you have four hearts, then you can just bid 4H.

Suppose, though, you don’t have fit with either of partner’s suits, you have good cards in your own suit but only small cards in the fourth suit. Now it’s not clear that 3NT will be a good contract because the opponents might be able to take a lot of tricks in that suit.  Maybe you think your hand is too strong or too distributional to play in 3NT and you want to find out more about partner’s other four cards? You can use a handy artificial bid of the fourth suit.  This is called fourth suit forcing and it allows your partner to:

• Show three cards in the suit you bid originally, if they have that
• Show a stop in the fourth suit by bidding NT in case you are worried about that suit
• generally give you extra information to help you decide on the best game contract.

The separate section on Fourth Suit Forcing will give you more information on this useful piece of system.

REVERSE BIDS

This is quite a tricky concept to grast at first and your best bet would be to watch the video about reverse bids and take the quiz to check that you understand.