Sunday, June 19, 2005 4:22 AM

2♣ Philosophy

PITBULLS:

You do not play a forcing club system. You are stuck with opening 2♣ with your strong hands. What constitutes a 2♣ opener ? In my mind there is one simple rule for 2♣ openers. If partner can not respond , is there a chance we will miss game ? If yes , I open 2♣ . It is much better to back track and slow things down after opening 2♣ . There is nothing you can do when the auction goes 1♥-P-P-P for +200. I would rather err on the side of the light 2♣ opener. Dragging your feet by failing to Q bid , leaping to game , repeating your suit , cheapest NT are all ways to give partner the message that your 2♣ bid is not a moose this time.

I have seen good players open the bidding at the one level with huge hands. What this does is condition partner to lie about her response as they have seen games being missed. I would like to have partner confidently pass at the one level knowing we have not missed game. You can respond light non vul vrs vul as a tactic but other than that , a response is a legitimate Bridge bid showing 6 HCP’s and up.

Years ago there was a convention called Namyats. This was a 4♣ or 4♦ opener showing a hand too strong to open 4 of a major with a long suit and outside cards. This is silly. Open the hand 2♣ and rebid 4 of a major and partner will have some idea of your hand. BJ advises to have your 3 defensive tricks to keep the director off your back. Strong two suiters , 5-4-3-1 and 4-4-4-1 should also be opened 2♣ when there is a risk of missing game. People shy away from that due to the 2♣ structure being clumsy in handling those types of hands. The answer is of course to strengthen your 2♣ structure.

You need an understanding how to handle strong two suiters after 2♣ , An understanding that 5-4-3-1 can be rebid with 2NT with the appropriate hand. Of course you need a way of handling the strong 4-4-4-1 hands. In standard Edmonton , the strong 4-4-4-1 hands are quite often opened at the one level and all hell breaks loose after that. If they do open 2♣ they jump in their stiff after a 2♦ response. This is an inelegant work around. Stan Cabay uses relays to help sort out these hands and Subash Gupta has invented relays to help with the two suiters. This helps make 2♣ openers respectable.

The goal of relays are all the same though. It is to prevent the ugly practice of opening these huge hands at the one level and hope partner dreams up a response or worse still rely on balancers. I have panelists on my bidding forum say that “they always balance” and bid their system around that. This is gambling at its worse. Partner should have a mental picture of your hand that you chose to open at the one level. This is Bridge ambiguity at its worse. How can partner even visualize such a huge hand if you did not open 2♣ ! I think fooling partner as well as the opponents must be the objective of these players.

The age old problem of how to define responses to 2♣ still exist. I do not like positive responses showing 2 of the top 3 honours unless it is a 6 card or longer suit . I will bid 2♦ as a waiting bid with positive responses as partner may put me through a relay sequence with her two suiter. I do not like controls as responses as they screw up the relay sequences . I would rather have the 2♣ opener describe her hand to me rather than me tell her how many controls I have. Controls take away valuable bidding room to find your fit. KCB & Q bidding will get the controls identified later in the auction. Playing relays , there is a case made for responding 2♦ as an automatic waiting response. Having a 2^nd negative is a pain though.