Responding to partner’s 2§ opener

The following schema can be used whenever 2§ is used as a strong, artificial opener.

The responses to 2§ are:

2©                   a “worthless” hand without any ace, king or fair five card suit

                        (Q J x x x) and 0-4 points

2ª, 3§, 3¨     good five card suit (two top honours)

2NT                 good five card heart suit (two top honours)

3©, 3ª, 4§, 4¨          solid, self supporting suit (minimum A K Q J x x or

                                                A K Q x x x x)

2¨                   all other hands.  This needs to be forcing to game otherwise it puts too much strain on the strong hand’s rebids.

So what are the advantages of this approach:

If partner responds 2© you know that he has not got any aces or kings.  Also no good five card suits.  So you will not look for a slam even with a powerful hand when you are missing too many controls.  The best hand partner could have is:

a)  ªQ 10 8 7 6; ©J x x; ¨J x; §x x x or b) ªJ x x x x x; ©Q x; ¨J x x; § x x

with another spade a) is too good and with some intermediate spades such as ª10 9 b) is also too good.

It depends a little on how good your 2§ opener is whether some sequences are game forcing.  If you play weak twos in three suits, 2§ could show an eight or nine trick hand but if you can show such hands some other way then 2§ will be either 23+ points or a game forcing hand.  Consider the following sequences:

2§       2©                   2§       2©                   2§       2©

2NT                             2ª       2NT                 3§       3¨

                                    3ª                               4§

The first is not forcing so shows 23-24 points.  Responder can pass with 0-2 points.

The second is game forcing unless 2§ could be based on eight or nine tricks in which case responder could pass with nothing.

I would treat the third as game forcing in all situations as opener has bypassed 3NT.

So opener must not rebid 2NT with a game going hand (25+ points).  But now the rebid of 3NT shows 25-29 points.  There is no need to rebid 4NT with 28 or 29 as partner cannot have enough for slam.  That avoids the problem of playing for ten tricks opposite a true Yarborough.

Similarly the second bidding sequence can be passed if it could show only nine tricks so with a game forcing hand opener must rebid either 4ª after 2NT or some new suit.

Since 2§          2¨ is game forcing there is no need to jump rebid.  Opener can rebid as follows:

2NT     any balanced hand 23+.  Responder can now look for 4-4 major (or minor) fits as over 2NT opener.  With a minimum response (3 – 6 points) he can bid 3NT and opener will only move forward with 27+.

2©, 2ª, 3§, 3¨          with a good five card suit.  There is no need to suppress five card suits as game is certain and slam possible if partner is not minimum.  So that means that 2NT shows a balanced hand with no good five card suit.

The specific responses with good five card suits (2ª, 2NT, 3§, 3¨) or solid six card suits (3©, 3ª, 4§, 4¨) do not occur very often but when they do it is often possible to bid slams or grand slams directly.  Also, when partner bids 2¨ and does not make one of these bids he cannot have that type of suit so the opener can see when the possible trump suit is not solid.  Again that avoids embarrassing grand slams missing a key trump honour.