One Club – Opener’s rebids and some continuations

After 1C – 1D:

One Heart, One Spade – Ninety percent of the time opener will have a five card or longer suit; but, he may have a four card suit if they are either 4441 or have a longer minor. With 44 in the majors rebid one heart. This bid is forcing for one round.

One No Trump: 17-19 Balanced – stayman and 4 way transfers over this.

Two Clubs, Two Diamonds: natural; usually six card suit with 17+ – no four card major and is non forcing. Bids after this are natural and should show at least 4 points and a 5 card suit.

Two Hearts: This bid shows a game forcing hand. Either it’s 25+ Balanced or a single suited hand. Responder must continue with two spades and opener clarifies with 2NT (strong balanced) or bids their game forcing suit. Continuations after 2NT as per opening 2NT.

Two Spades: At least 5/5 in the minors – 2NT asks for better minor. 3H and 3S show good hands for clubs and diamonds respectively (like unusual over unusual).

Two No Trump: 22-24 balanced – bids as over a 2NT opener.

Three Clubs, Three Diamonds: Invitational minor hand

Let me start by saying that MOST of the time the rebid will be either one heart, spade or one no trump. This is deliberate and keeps the auctions low and allows us to provide tons of system for us to forget.

After 1C – 1D – 1M:

With Minimum Hands we have two choices:

No Support: One No Trump –ANY minimum hand (0 to a bad 5 count) without 3 card support (or with 3 card support and a balanced hand). Openers responses are natural and non-forcing at the 2 level (reverses and jump shifts are super strong hands).

Decent Support: Two of the Major – 0-5 hand with 3 card support with a ruffing value or 0-3 with 4 card support. Two way game tries over this (as per other situations).

Three Major: 4+ card support with 4-5 HCP.

With Maximum Hands we show our support:

Other Major (One Spade or Two Hearts): 5+ in suit bid and 0-2 card support

Two Clubs: No Support (0-2) and not 5 cards in the other major After this bid – Opener bids two diamonds to show a minimum hand – ANY OTHER BID is a Game Force.

Two Diamonds: 3 card support

Jump Shift: (e.g. Three Clubs): 4 card support with shortness

2NT: 4 card support with no shortness

After 1C – 1M

One No Trump shows the 17-19 balanced hand without 4 card support for the major. Responder can check back for 3 card support or the other major.

1C – 1M – 1NT – 2M is suit setting (since 2C is checkback) – shows slam interest. 3M by opener shows good support for hearts.

Two No Trump shows 22+ Balanced hand without 4 card support – responder can check back.

One Spade, Two Clubs, Two Diamonds, Two Hearts (over one spade): Natural bids showing a 5 card suit.

Two Major: Shows 4+ in the suit – sets the suit

Really there should be a whole specialized sequence here on different raises and rebids. There’s no reason not to play splinters; key card at a lower level and all that good stuff. Just a matter of remembering it right now. There’s so much here that the less we do to start the easier it’ll be to remember.

Jump Shifts (two spades, three clubs, diamonds, hearts): Strong two in the suit bid.

There is an advantage here to playing step responses to 1M as we don’t need two sets of bids – natural and strong two – it frees up the jump shift bids for other meanings. However for simplicity we’ll leave this as is for now.

After 1C – 1NT (2C)

Accepting the transfer (i.e. 2C and 2D) shows a fit, showing 4 card support with a minimum range (16 – 20) – Responder can show a minimum hand now by doing a simple raise to 3C (3D).

A jump accept shows a strong slam hand (typically 21+).

Any other bid is natural – jumps show strong 2s.

2NT is natural dual range – 17-19 or 22+. 3C is a two way checkback for majors and range with 3D showing 17 – 19 and other bids showing 22+. Over 3D responder can bid the major they are interested in.

After 1C – 2D

2H / 2S are natural 5 card suits.

2NT is asking for 4 card suits

3C is a two way checkback for majors and range with 3D showing 8 – 10 and other bids showing 22+. Over 3D responder can bid the major they are interested in.

3NT is to play.

Direct suit bids are natural strong 2 style (otherwise why didn’t you go through the relay?).

After 1C – 2M

The question over 2M is what is partner likely to have with 4-6 and a 6 card major – is it more important to find out cards, suit quality or shape. With such a weak hand, suit quality and distribution seem more important.

2NT asks for suit quality – showing bad, average, good and solid. Solid would be something like KQJTxx.

3C asks for shortness – with 3NT showing clubs and 3M showing no shortness.

3M is natural and non forcing – you might wonder why non-forcing : the question should be what hand do you have that would be invitational or forcing where you don’t want to know about trumps or shortness. Invitating such a limited specific hand seems silly. Forcing hands are asking responder to cuebid when they can’t have anything to cuebid.

Other bids are natural and forcing (except obvious game bids like 3NT).

After 1C – 2NT

Play system on as over a 2NT opener (3C = stayman, 3D, H, S = transfers, 4C = transfer, 4D / 4H = texas).