Lesson 9.

The 2 Club Opening Bid.

The opening bid of 2 Clubs is the strongest opening bid you can make. It is purely conventional and bears no relationship to your holding in Clubs -
or, for that matter, in any suit. It merely says to partner “I have a hand so strong that I think we ought to reach a game contract,
however weak your hand may be.” And therefore, of course, it is forcing. We have met forcing bids before: for example,
the Double of an opening bid of one in a suit forces the doubler's partner to respond by bidding his longest suit.
And when an opening bidder makes a rebid above his ceiling, the rebid is forcing. e.g. the sequence 1D, 1S, 2H, the rebid of 2 Hearts forces responder to make another bid.

However, the opening bid of 2 Clubs is forcing in a much stronger way. Except for one sequence, it is forcing to game
it forces BOTH partners to keep bidding UNTIL A GAME CONTRACT IS REACHED! 
Moreover, in addition to virtually guaranteeing game, an opening 2 Club bid is inviting partner to consider a slam contract.

Requirements .

For a hand with No Trump distribution (4333, 4432, or 5332) the requirement is 23 high-card points.

However, as the distribution becomes more unbalanced,(for example with a major suit of 6 or more cards, or with 2 suits of 5 or more),
the point count can be shaded down to about 20. Such distributional hands will usually be able, without help from partner, to take 9 tricks with their suit as trumps.

Responses.

1. 2 Hearts, 2 Spades, 3 Clubs 3 Diamonds. These responses are called POSITIVE responses and show an Ace and a King, a KQ (i.e. in the same suit) and a King, or 3 Kings.
Very often the opener will be able to see immediately which of those three holdings responder has! After a Positive response, both partners should be thinking of a possible slam.

2. 2 No Trumps. A semi-positive bid. It shows a scattered 8 - 10 points but denies the precise requirements for a positive response.

3. 2 Diamonds. This is the Negative response and denies the ability to make any of the above bids. Like the opening 2 Club bid,
it is purely conventional and says nothing about the Diamond suit. This is also by far the most frequent response to an opening 2 Club bid.

Openers rebid.

1. After the negative 2 Diamond Response.

(a) With a balanced hand and 23 - 25 points, bid 2NT. THIS IS THE ONLY SEQUENCE THAT CAN BE PASSED SHORT OF GAME

Responder with 2 points or less may pass! (NOTE. may not must)

Responder with 3 or more points will raise to 3NT (Yes! That's right! 3 points are enough. In fact, with 6 or more cards in a Major suit, you can bid game in your Major on 0 points!!!)

3 Clubs would be a Stayman bid, looking for a Major suit fit.

(b) With a balanced hand and 26+ points, bid 3NT. Since game is now reached, Responder may pass, but with a 6 card Major he should convert to 4 in the Major suit.

(c) With a distributional hand, Opener will now start showing his suit (or suits) confident that partner will keep the bidding open until game is reached,
thus giving him the chance to show his distribution and to investigate the best game contract.

2. After any other response.

Opener starts to show his distribution, as above. This time, however, the 2NT rebid, after a response of 2 Hearts or 2 Spades, although it still shows 23 - 25 points, will obviously be forcing.

A slam in No Trumps requires a combined count of about 33 points, in a suit (once a fit has been found) about 32 points is the usual minimum.

Slam Bidding.

A bid of 6 in a suit (or in No Trumps) is known as a Small Slam, and the bid of 7 as a Grand Slam.

When there is a possibility of taking 12 (or even 13) tricks, the rewards for making a slam contract justify the risk of making a bid above game level .
However, it is often possible to make 12 or 13 tricks when, unfortunately, the defenders can take 2 tricks before you can do so, thus defeating the slam contract.
The most obvious cases are when the defenders hold 2 Aces or the Ace and King of the same suit and are able to cash these cards before you can get the lead.
It would be useful to know, when contemplating a slam, whether you and your partner between you have two Aces missing.
Unfortunately you are not allowed to ask “How many Aces have you got, partner?” In order to guard against such a possibility, Bridge players use conventional bids,
i.e. bids that don't mean what they appear to say.

Since a bid of 3 No Trumps is sufficient to win a game, there is never any need to bid 4 No Trumps. Therefore the bid, in its literal sense, is never used and has become an idle bid.
It has been harnessed by Bridge players to enquire about specific card holdings.
There are many conventions that use 4 No Trumps to ask partner how many Aces he holds, and the simplest is known as Blackwood.

The Blackwood Convention.

When you think that you can make enough tricks to make a slam , provided that the opponents don't hold 2 Aces, you can check on partners Aces by bidding 4 No Trumps. Partner responds as follows.

1) With no Aces OR with all 4 Aces he bids 5 Clubs

2) With 1 Ace he bids 5 Diamonds

3) With 2 Aces he bids 5 Hearts

4) With 3 Aces he bids 5 Spades

If you need information about partners Kings, you can continue the enquiry by bidding 5 No Trumps. Partner responds in the same way showing 0 to 4 Kings.
The bid of 5 No Trumps guarantees that the partnership has no Aces missing. Once one of the partners has started this enquiry he is in charge of the auction.
The responder just accepts his partners decision on whether to bid the slam or not.