TWiB Lesson #550 (1 of 8)

When RHO opens a 2-level preempt, they have started eating up our valuable bidding space. But this is just the start of their attack on us. LHO may join in the attack and raise the preempt, making our life even more difficult. When we are bidding over RHO’s 2-level preempt we should keep this in mind. We need lots of tools to deal with this situation.

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TWiB Lesson #551 (2 of 8)

When the opponents open at the 4-level they put a lot of pressure on us to make difficult decisions without much room to maneuver or describe our hand. This preempt will force us to either double or overcall at a very high level. Let’s look at these options and see how we need to adjust our thinking and bidding because of the lack of available space.

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TWiB Lesson #552 (3 of 8)

When the opponents open the bidding with a 3-level preempt then much of tour focus is on “Should we bid beyond 3NT?” This is especially true when we have one long minor, when we likely want to play in 3NT or 5-minor. This allows us to use 4-minor in some interesting conventional ways, just as we do vs. a 2-level preempt.

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TWiB Lesson #553 (4 of 8)

When the opponents stay out of our auctions then usually 4NT is Quantitative in a NT auction or Keycard in a suit auction. But in a competitive auction we are more likely to use 4NT as a bid showing 2 places to play. Let’s look at some of these auctions so we know what partner is trying to do to when they use 4NT in a competitive auction.

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TWiB Lesson #554 (5 of 8)

Good/Bad 2NT gives Opener two ways to compete to the 3-level – by bidding directly with a “Good Hand” or by bidding 2NT first with a “Bad Hand”. By using 2NT as a relay bid, instead of a natural call, this allows for a more precise description of Opener’s hand. Let’s see how it works through examples.

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TWiB Lesson #555 (6 of 8)

In competitive auctions where the opponents have found a fit, we will compete aggressively – especially at matchpoints. We will frequently use double (for takeout) with three-suited hands and sometimes with two-suited hands. To handle these situations, we want partner (Advancer) to have a tool to help us find our best fit. As usual, in competitive auctions our choice of convention will be 2NT. This gadget is called Scrambling 2NT.

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TWiB Lesson #556 (7 of 8)

Lead-directing doubles can be helpful in getting partner off to a good opening lead. These lead-directing doubles are common when the opponents make an artificial bid. But when the opponents make a cuebid of our suit, then a lead-directing double is also very common. Here we focus on this situation in detail in order to structure our agreements to allow us to communicate in the most effective way we can.

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TWiB Lesson #557 (8 of 8)

There are certain auctions where we have made a bid that has “fully described our hand” and we leave the bidding up to partner.  In auctions like these, for example when we have opened the bidding with a preempt at the 2-level or 3-level, then we usually are not very sure of what partner has for their bid and we want to leave any further decisions up to them.  But sometimes we have more shape than partner expects or our instincts tell us that is right to bid on.  When that is the case we do NOT want to just take over and bid again – we told partner we would not bid anymore after our first bid.  In an auction like this we can use a Double as a conventional bid saying “I want to bid more”.  This is called an I Want to bid Double and it applies in very specific situations

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