[jcmharris]

Going thru the ACBL Learning program, one suggestion for opening was...if you have 6 clubs and a 5 card major, you should open your 6 card club suit first. My question is how would you be able to tell your partner that you have 5 in a major and 6 in that club suit. i'm confused..

[blackshoe]

One of the general principles of bidding is "bid your longest suit first". So when you bid one suit and then another, you generally have more cards in the first suit. There are exceptions, of course. If the bidding goes 1♣-1♥-1♠, you may have only 3 clubs and 4 spades (because you need at least five to open 1♠. But if the auction continues, for example -2♥-2♠ you should now see your partner as holding at least 5 spades (because he rebid them) and therefore at least 6 clubs (because if he were 5-5, he should have opened 1♠). Note: there is an old style, still seen here and there, which holds that with 5-5 in the black suits, one should open 1♣, but that style is obsolescent at best, if not obsolete, and would not apply in any case if the major were hearts.

[kenrexford]

Strangely, I was just working on this topic for our local newsletter for June.

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever devised a "rule" for when to not do this (with extreme minimums)? I was thinking along the lines of the "Rule of Twenty." Perhaps you would bid the major first if your "Rule of Twenty" count was only 20-21 or something like that. Any thoughts?

[han]

Generally bid your longest suit first.

[Fluffy]

to make partner know that you have 6 minor and 5 major you have to open the minor, rebid the major, and then rebid the major again.

However when your suits aren't spades and clubs, it can be hard, because you will often have to reverse to acomplish the task at your second round. For example, having 5 hearts and 6 diamonds, if you open 1♦ whatever partner rebids you won't be able to show your hearts if you don't have enough strenght to reverse (bid 2♥).

In this situations it will be often better to just open the 5 card major and bid your hand as if it was just a minimum 5-5.

[Quantumcat]

Everytime you rebid a suit, you are telling your partner you have at least one more card in that suit than you originally promised.

For example, if you have five hearts and five clubs, you start with hearts (to show five) then bid clubs (to show four) then bid clubs again (to show five).

There are general rules for deciding which of your suits to open and rebid:

Rule #1: Above all, bid the longer one first
Rule #2: If they are equal length, bid the higher one first (hearts in the above example)

This is so if you open a lower suit, then bid a higher suit, you are showing MORE of the lower one than the higher one (or else you would have opened the higher one) and now, every time you rebid the higher one, you are also showing an extra card in the lower one.

For example, you have six diamonds and five hearts.

You start with diamonds (to show four) then bid hearts (to show five diamonds and four hearts). Then when you bid hearts again, you are showing six diamonds and five hearts.

The reason bidding hearts will show an extra diamond s well as an extra heart, is because if you had started with equal length, you would have started with hearts.

Rule #3: If you bid and rebid a suit without bidding any others, you are showing at least six, even if your first bid showed only four. This is because a balanced hand should have bid notrumps, and if you don't have a balanced hand you can't have a five card suit without having a four-card one also.

[cherdano]

Quantumcat, on 2011-May-16, 22:18, said:

There are general rules for deciding which of your suits to open and rebid:

Rule #1: Above all, bid the longer one first
Rule #2: If they are equal length, bid the higher one first (hearts in the above example)

Of course, this is only true for suits of length five or more.

[jillybean]

Quantumcat, on 2011-May-16, 22:18, said:

Rule #3: If you bid and rebid a suit without bidding any others, you are showing at least six, even if your first bid showed only four. This is because a balanced hand should have bid notrumps, and if you don't have a balanced hand you can't have a five card suit without having a four-card one also.

I don't like this rule, there are times when rebidding a 5 card suit is correct.
xxx,AKJxx,xx,Axx 1♥:2♦ 2♥

[Quantumcat]

cherdano, on 2011-May-16, 22:30, said:

Of course, this is only true for suits of length five or more.

jillybean, on 2011-May-17, 00:08, said:

I don't like this rule, there are times when rebidding a 5 card suit is correct.
xxx,AKJxx,xx,Axx 1♥:2♦ 2♥

lol, ok, to the both of you, I was only trying to clear things up for the original poster. There are rules that get given to beginners when they don't understand why the rules are the way they are, then later on when they understand the purpose of the rules they can break them when appropriate.

For example, "always cover an honour with an honour" or, "always play 2nd hand low" or "never pass a new suit by your partner" (not that you would break the last one very often, but you know what I mean :-))

[jillybean]

I dislike bridge rules immensley and have spent a lot of time unlearning the ones I was taught when I first took up the game.
IMHO, rules stifle thinking and bridge teachers & forum contributors would be doing people a better service by saying "for most hands", "one way to play it is" or
"one expert treatment is".

Let's leave rules for the International Bridge Laws Forum.

[Quantumcat]

jillybean, on 2011-May-17, 05:27, said:

I dislike bridge rules immensley and have spent a lot of time unlearning the ones I was taught when I first took up the game.
IMHO, rules stifle thinking and bridge teachers & forum contributors would be doing people a better service by saying "for most hands", "one way to play it is" or
"one expert treatment is".

Let's leave rules for the International Bridge Laws Forum.

You have probably forgotten what it is like to be a beginner. When you are a beginner, you have no experience or the instinct that comes with it. You have no idea how to do the simplest things. Rules give them a chance to not have to think about some things, and spend their energy thinking about the things that they CAN work out.

For instance, we give them the rule to open 1NT if possible, then to open a five-card major when they have one. So they work out they don't have 15-17, so open their 20 count with five spades, 1♠. Then their partner bids 2♠. NOW they can do some thinking, because it's something they have the power to work out. They know 25 points = a game, a 2♠ response shows 6-10, 20 + 6 = 26. "Aha!" They say. "I worked it out! We can make game!" Then they proudly write "4S" on the bidding pad.

They have no experience to be able to tell what the best opening bid is (experience about how different auctions tend to go and whether they end up in good contracts or not), and if they were forced to think about it they might feel powerless and stupid. So we give them some rules, then teach them about some things that they CAN work out for themselves. Then they feel capable and not stupid, and they continue playing.

Later on, when they have experience, they can work out that the "rule" is not the best thing to do, and do something else. For instance they got passed out in 1♠ once, and that 2NT is a better opening.