BRIDGE LESSONS - BEGINNERS

NYU Bridge and Spades Club

LESSON 4

The Basics of Openers’ Rebids

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Obviously, the opener’s rebid will depend on the responder’s bid

If partner has limited his/her points, your job is easy

Determine if game is makeable

Decide whether to pass, raise (to invite) or bid game

You have a lot more to think about if partner is not limited e.g. 1C-1H

EVALUATING OPENER’S HAND

Generally, when rebidding opener’s hand, we classify the

hand into 3 categories

Minimum – 15- points and below

Strong – 15+ to 18- points

Game forcing (GF) – 18+ to 21 points

This is because partner shows 6+ points with any response

Note: 15- points means a lousy 15 point hand while 15+

points means a good 15 point hand

This recognizes the disparity in quality of hands with the same

number of points. E.g. a hand with a void can play better in suit

games than a balanced one and one should judge his/her hand

based on the predicted eventual contract

PRIORITY 1 – SUPPORT PARTNER’S MAJOR

Recall that most bidding systems advocate

finding NT or major games

Thus, your first priority is to support partner’s

major

If you have 4-card support for partner’s major

response, raise

Single raise with minimum, double raise with

strong hand, game bid with GF hand

PRIORITY 2 – REBID OWN SUIT

You can rebid your own suit if you have 6+

cards in it

You are allowed to re-rebid the suit one more

time for each extra card (on top of the 6

promised) you have in the suit

Minimum rebid with minimum, jump rebid

with strong hand, game rebid with GF hand

PRIORITY 3 – BID A NEW MAJOR

To show a minimum or strong hand, you bid the new suit at the lowest level

You can only bid a new suit that is higher ranking than your opening suit at the 2 level if you have a strong or GF hand and a longer first suit than the second. This is called a reverse bid E.g. 1C – 1S – 2H shows 5+C, 4H, strong/GF hand

If you have a GF hand, jump and bid a new suit. This is called an opener jump shift and is game forcing E.g. 1C – 1D – 2H. You could’ve bid 1H but jumped to 2H

instead

PRIORITY 4 – BID NT

Recall that a 1NT opener is 15-17 points while a 2NT

opener is 20-21 points. This begs the question, “How

do you show a balanced hand with 18-19 points?”

When rebidding NT, you are showing the point range

below that i.e.

Rebid 1NT shows 12-14 points and a balanced hand

Rebid 2NT shows 18-19 points and a balanced hand

If partner’s new suit was at the 2 level, shift the bids up

by 1 level

E.g. 1H – 2C – 2NT shows 12-14 not 18-19

PRIORITY 5 – BID A NEW MINOR OR RAISE

PARTNER’S MINOR

Use the same principles as in Priority 3 for

bidding a new suit and the same principles

as in Priority 1 for raising partner’s minor

One exception – with a GF hand and support

for partner’s minor, bid 3NT instead of raising

to minor game

As explained before, 3NT generally makes more

easily than a minor game, which usually requires

29+ points