Two Club Openings

 

These hands cover various aspects of Two Club auctions ... when to open 2♣ ... when to give a positive response ... follow-up sequences ... what to do when the opponents interfere.

 

 

28th February, 2007         Board 25      Dealer North       E-W Vul

 

 

Quite a hand!  We don’t need much more than a useful Ace from Partner to be able to make slam.  Does this mean that we should open the hand 2♣?  We certainly have the playing strength, but nonetheless we don’t like 2♣ here, for a number of reasons:

-         For a 2♣ opener, we’d prefer more HCP’s and more defense.

-         With such an extreme two-suiter, we’d prefer to start bidding our suits right away at the one-level, all the better to convey our extreme shape.

-         There is virtually no danger of getting passed out in 1♥, there are just too many HCP’s out there, and too much distribution.

 

So, we’d open 1♥, planning a reverse into 2♠.

 

 

11th July, 2007                  Board 5      Dealer North       N-S Vul

 

 

Do you open this hand 2♣?  We certainly do.  Not quite enough for game opposite a broke Partner, but we would force to game anyway, starting with 2♣ is the best way to get things started.  The problem with opening 1♥ is that we’ll be stuck if Partner now bids 1♠ or 1NT.  Now, bidding 4♥ seems like an underbid, and making a fake jump shift to 3♣ risks a confusing auction.

 

 

16th May, 2007                 Board 5      Dealer North       N-S Vul

 

 

No arguments with a 1♠ opening but our own preference would be to stretch it into a 2♣ bid.  Perhaps it is a slight overbid, but we can just about count 8½ tricks, which is a measure used by some.  And 2♣ sequences work quite well for major-oriented hands, better, in our experience, than opening 1♠ and making a fake jump shift into a 2- or 3-card suit.

 

But, we are talking personal preference here, if opening 1♠ here works for you then fine.  However, we would certainly draw the line at opening 2♣ with this hand if the long suit were a minor, let’s say:

            ♠ 74

            ♥ AJ6

            ♦ AQ

            ♣ AKQT64

The same hand with the black suits switched, but those 2♣ openings just don’t work efficiently when the long suit is a minor.

 

 

19th July, 2006                 Board 4      Dealer West      Both Vul

 

 

East might start with 4♥, but, even opposite a passed hand, he’s really too good for that, slam is still a possibility.  So his real choices are 1♥ or 2♣.   Much as we avoid minor suit 2♣ openings, when it comes to the majors, we very much lean in the other direction.  Why?  Simply because major suit 2♣ auctions are quite efficient … what is there not to like about an auction that starts 2♣ 2♦, 2♥?  Plenty of room for slam investigation, if that is what West's hand calls for.

 

 

7th March, 2007               Board 2      Dealer East       N-S Vul

 

 

Some partnerships have strict rules about their suit requirements for a positive response to a Two Club opening, for example “2 of the top 3”.  That’s a matter of personal taste, of course, our own preference is to be a little more relaxed on the subject.  It’s still important to have a reasonable suit, though, and if pushed for a rule we’d say “2 of the top 3, or, failing that, 3 of the top 5”.  Even that may be a bit rigid, who would not want to make a positive response holding QJ9xxx in a major and an outside Ace?

 

Anyway, whatever your rules are, we do heartily recommend that you change them if they do not allow you to give a positive response on this hand.

 

 

14th March, 2007             Board 26      Dealer East       Both Vul

 

 

We had a hand just last week (Board 2) where we discussed the requirements for a positive response to a 2♣ opening.  Then we said:

 

Some partnerships have strict rules about their suit requirements for a positive response to a Two Club opening, for example “2 of the top 3”.  That’s a matter of personal taste, of course, our own preference is to be a little more relaxed on the   subject.  It’s still important to have a reasonable suit, though, and if pushed for a rule we’d say “2 of the top 3, or, failing that, 3 of the top 5”.  Even that may be a bit rigid, who would not want to make a positive response holding QJ9xxx in a major and an outside Ace?

 

Our words were prophetic because we here we have that very QJ9xxx and an outside Ace opposite a 2♣ opening!  Last week we were careful to say “QJ9xxx in a major”, because whatever our requirements for a positive response, it’s advisable to make them more rigorous if our suit is a minor, as 2♣ 3♣ or 2♣ 3♦ is such a space-consuming auction.

 

Nonetheless, our own choice would be to respond 3♣ with this hand, all the more so because if we bid 2♦ (waiting), and Partner then bids the expected 2♥, we still cannot show our Clubs, because 3♣ is generally used as a “second negative”.  But, if we did not have that singleton we’d downgrade the hand to 2♦.  In other words, this one is quite borderline for us, and we know many players who would bid 2♦ instead of 3♣, preferring a better suit before they use up so much bidding space.

 

 

13th June, 2007                 Board 23      Dealer South       Both Vul

 

 

North’s 2♦ bid was the so-called “waiting” response.  It did not necessarily show a bad hand, simply one which did not meet the requirements for a positive response, those requirements typically being some combination of “good suit and good hand”.  Some pairs play that a “good suit” is 5+ with two of the top three honors, and that a good hand is one with at least an Ace and a King.  That’s a pretty rigid set of requirements, we think, but there is a lot to be said for making that cheap waiting bid unless we have a really good reason to do otherwise, and a robust suit is the best reason of all.

 

Anyway, let’s say that we bid our waiting 2♦ and Partner now bids 2♥.  No great surprise there!  What next?  If we are playing 2♦ as “waiting”, then it’s common that the “cheaper minor”, in this case 3♣, is used artificially to show a weak hand, with weak typically being defined as less than a King or less than two Queens.  Rats!  We still cannot show our Club suit, our hand is way too good.

 

This auction is not going well!  In the circumstances, all that we can suggest is a rebid of 2NT, and we would further suggest that this shows a hand which is too good for 3♣ but which has no other convenient bid.  Life would be intolerable if we had to have all of the unbid suits stopped, if that were the case then the bid would come up less than once a year.

 

So, 2NT it is!  And, as we make this bid, perhaps we will also make a mental note to discuss with Partner whether or not we should be allowed to make a positive response of 3♣ over 2♣ with this hand.  That would be our preference, we’re probably in a minority on this one.

 

 

17th January, 2007           Board 3      Dealer South       E-W Vul

 

 

Clearly we’ll be playing this one in Spades, and we’ll be raising Spades here.  To 3♠ or to 4♠?  South’s sequence (at least as it is most commonly played) is game-forcing, so the question is: “What is the difference between 3♠ and 4♠?”  According to the Principle of Fast Arrival, 4♠ here is weak, and 3♠ is at least slightly encouraging.  This is only logical if we think about it … with a promising hand we bid slowly which permits Partner to investigate further if she is of that mind … with a wretched hand we go straight to game, discouraging such thoughts.

 

That’s a generally accepted approach in this situation, perhaps it would we more useful if we somehow defined what we mean by “wretched hand”.  It’s a partnership choice, of course, our own style is that we would not bid 4♠ with any hand that contained a first- or second-round control … yes, even holding ♠ xxxx, ♥ xxxx, ♦ x, ♣ xxxx we would show some signs of non-wretchedness (in this case via a 4♦ Splinter).

 

 

11th October, 2006           Board 2      Dealer East       N-S Vul

 

 

It’s “standard” in this situation for a Double to be for penalty (presumably with a trump trick or two) and for Pass to be nebulous (no biddable suit, no desire to penalize, almost any hand strength).  However, in tournament play at least, a more popular approach is for the Double to show a bad hand … one reasonable definition of a bad hand is “less than a King” and/or “less than 2 Queens”.  An extension of the treatment occurs when 2♣ is doubled by the opponents … now a Redouble shows a bad hand.

 

This treatment works well on the actual hand.  After East’s weakness-showing Double, West, who is balanced without game in his own hand, simply passes to collect the penalty.  On the actual hand, it was no doubt disappointing when E-W collected only 200, but that was plenty considering that they did not have a game.

 

 

11th April, 2007                Board 5      Dealer North       N-S Vul

 

 

After the 2♠ overcall, as North, what are your methods?  Nowadays, many tournament players use Pass here as a way to show values … Double would show a bad hand … and a bid of a new suit or No Trump would show values and something worth saying.  So, let’s say that North’s Pass shows some values but nothing particular to say.  For our rebid we could not bid our originally planned 2NT without a Spade stopper, so we doubled.  Now what do we do when the bidding comes back to us?

 

The real question here is what does 3♠ show?  One of two things, surely:

-         Either, we have Diamond slam aspirations, in which case we’ll bid on if Partner bids 3NT next;

-         Or, we are trying for 3NT.

 

Partner won’t know which type of hand we have, but for the time being he should assume that we are angling for 3NT (as in fact, we are).  The next question is whether we are asking for a half-stop, such as Qx, or a full stopper.  We’d say that a half-stop should be sufficient.  After all, Partner has already had the opportunity to show a full stopper directly following the 2♠ overcall, but instead he made an uninformative Pass.  He also could have bid 2NT after our Double, but instead chose to bid Diamonds.  It really doesn’t look like Partner has a full stopper, does it?  So, surely 3♠ here is asking for a half-stop.

 

 

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