LD Precision Club

The 1 NT Opening bid

Even though this Bidding System is advertised as a Strong Club system, with the starring role given to the 1C opening bid, arguably the most important opening bid is 1NT. Probably 35%-40% of the biddable hands will be opened with 1NT.

And the response structure to the opening 1NT bid occurs in several different contexts, so it is appropriate to discuss the response structure in some detail before visiting the other bids.

1NT – 11-15 HCP, balanced, no 5 card major

A balanced hand in this Bidding System is any hand that does not contain a void, singleton, or more that one doubleton.

The opening 1NT hand may contain a 5 card minor suit but not a 5 card major suit. This is one of the contexts that show a different treatment of major suits. Hands with a 5 card major suit are opened with 1 of the major suit. There are some hands with a 5 card Diamond suit that one might legitimately argue could be opened 1D, but the preference and expectation is that if the hand can be opened 1NT then it should be opened 1NT. This preference arises from the increased preemptive value of the 1NT bid vs a 1D bid. A 1NT opening bid makes it more difficult for the opponents to enter the bidding safely.

Talking about safety, opening 1NT with 11 HCP is inherently risky. If your Left Hand Opponent (LHO) has a balanced hand with, say 14 HCP, the opponent will usually double your opening bid. If it turns out that his partner has 12 or so HCP, you are in serious trouble. Your partner can have at most 3 HCP. If you are vulnerable you could easily lose 800 points or more. This is guaranteed to be a disaster. So we don’t let that happen, we use “Escape Bids” or “Runout Bids” to find a safer suit contract at the 2 level.

There is an exception to the above. If your partner has 10+ HCP then you would like to play the 1NT doubled. But to make it even more exciting, your partner should Redouble. This converts the 1NTx contract into a game level 1NTxx. If you make it you score a game. This puts tremendous pressure on the opponents. They face losing big if you make the contract. So they will seldom leave the 1NTxx in place but rather they will bid at the 2 level. At this point you can ignore the double and treat the new bid as a direct overcall (which will be discussed in a later section).

1 NT Escape Bids

However, if your partner has <10 HCP, it is time for evasive action! The evasive action is defined by partnership agreement and generally has to be alerted, and explained upon request, to the opponents.

The simplest escape bid is for partner to bid their longest and strongest suit. Opener is expected to pass. The problem is that you may end up with just 6 trumps between you. Partner’s longest suit is a 4 card Diamond suit, and you happen to have a doubleton in Diamonds. Life is not good in this case.

OK, now that the risky part has been handled, let’s talk about normal constructive bidding in response to an opening 1NT.

Constructive responses to opening 1NT

< 10 HCP

With a 5+ card major, Responder uses a Jacoby Transfer to force opener to bid the major suit after which the Responder passes. This is essentially an escape.

For those not familiar with Jacoby Transfers, Responder bids 2D to force Opener to rebid 2H, and bids 2H to force Opener to rebid 2S.

With a 7+ card minor, Responder should consider bidding 3 of the minor suit. Do this only if Responder has 7-9 HCP, because opener may rebid forcing Responder to rebid at the 4 level.

Otherwise, pass. If opponents let you have the 1NT contract, undoubled, you won’t get into too much trouble. Remember, they have the balance of HCP and have not bid them. They will usually suffer a bad score as a result.

10+ HCP

This is where life gets interesting. We may have a game somewhere, we just need to find it. Or determine that we do not have a game and find the appropriate part score contract. To do that, the Responder needs to refine the estimate of the number of HCP and distribution of the of the opener’s hand. The Responder does that with a combination of conventions and invitational bids. The conventions used are: Australian Stayman, Jacoby Transfers, and Minor Suit Stayman.

First we need to talk about opener’s hand. The 1NT bid promises 11-15 HCP and a balanced hand. For purposes of refinement we divide the 11-15 HCP range into two subranges: 11-13(weak) and 13(strong)-15, known as the min and max subranges. You will notice that 13 appears in both subranges. If Responder has 13 HCP, Responder chooses which subrange to use depending on other supporting cards. Tens and nines are good. For purposes of calculating partnership total HCP, the min subrange is assumed to have 12 HCP and the max subrange to have 14 HCP.

Looking for a major fit

When partner opens the bidding with 1NT and you have 10+ HCP and a 4+ card major suit, the first thing to do is check if the partnership has a major suit fit. What you do depends on how long your major suit is.

With 6+ cards in a major suit, and 13+ HCP, bid 4 of the major. You know opener has at least 2 cards in your suit, giving you 8+ trumps, the definition of a fit. And since you have a combined HCP of 25+ ( your 13+ and partners assumed 12), game is almost assured. Look at it this way, 25 HCP -2 = 23, divide by 3 gives 7.66 HCP tricks. Assuming it takes 3 rounds to draw trump, the opener's 6 trumps gives 3 additional tricks, for a total of 10.66.

With 6+ cards and 10-12 HCP, bid 3 of the major, inviting opener to bid 4 if they have 3+ support and more than 12 HCP. If opener bids 3NT then opener has only 2 card support but more than 12 HCP. You can decide to leave it at 3NT or force it to 4 of your major.

With 5 cards in your major, use a Jacoby Transfer to force opener to bid your major. After opener bids your major, if you have 10-12 HCP and no other 4 card suit, bid 2NT. If you have another 4 card suit, bid the next level of that suit. This allows partner to choose at the 3 level. If you have 13+ HCP, bid 3NT or a jump in your other suit. Again this allows opener to choose the final contract.

With 4 cards in one or both majors, use Stayman to ask opener if opener has a 4 card major. If Opener rebids 2D or a major that you do not have 4 of, bid 2NT to invite to game, or bid 3NT if you have 12+ HCP. If Opener rebids a major that you have 4 of, raise to 3 to invite to game, or bid game if you have 12+ points (HCP+DP).

No majors, unsuitable for NT

OK, Responder has no 4+ card major, and has a hand that, on the surface, does not look suitable for NT. This usually means that Responder has 9+ cards in the minors. If Responder has an unbalanced hand with 6+ cards in one minor, and 10-12 HCP then Responder bids 3 of the minor. Opener must proceed carefully here and usually pass unless opener has a 14-15 HCP hand. If Responder has 13+ HCP then Responder may bid 4 of the minor, inviting opener to bid game in the minor. Since opener has a balanced hand, opener should probably reject any thoughts of slam in this situation.

If Responder has 5/4+ in the minors, Responder uses the Minor Suit Stayman convention. Using this convention, Responder bids 2S, asking opener to bid a 4+ card minor if opener has one. Opener rebids a minor or 2N to indicate no minor. Based on opener’s response, Responder can pass or raise the bid.

Minor Suit Stayman

Gerber Ace Asking Convention

Occasionally Responder will have a very strong hand, 16+ HCP, and will want to investigate slam. Gerber is the standard ace asking convention used over natural NT bids. Note that the opener never invokes Gerber since the opener’s hand is limited to 11-15 HCP. Responder is the only one who knows if slam is possible.

Kings are asked for the same way with a follow-up 5C bid by Responder.

Opponents’ Interference

It seems to be a fact of life that bridge opponents do not always cooperate with our attempts to secure a good bridge contract. If possible, they will interfere with the bidding. We have already dealt with the problem of doubles, so let us now address overcalls.

Many overcall bids of 1NT are conventional. And there are many such conventions, too many to keep track of. So for purposes of simplicity, we ignore the possible meanings of the overcall as far as our immediate responses are concerned.

We will occasionally lose the ability to make our normal bids. But don’t get too creative, it messes up our mutual understandings about what our bids mean. It is probably worth while to get shut out rather than introduce ambiguity in our bidding system.

OK, that is it for 1NT.