When you wish to participate in an auction
for a painting, you need to have money in
your wallet, or checking account, to make
a bid. When you bid for the contract at
bridge, you also need to have some
currency. In this case, your currency is
in your bridge hand, your 13 cards.

If you're bidding a suit (spades, hearts,
diamonds or clubs), you need to have
at least a few cards in your suit; this
is called length. And you also need
honor cards (aces, kings, queens
jacks and tens) in your hand; this
is called strength.

We call this "length and
strength." Mind you, if you
have a strong hand, you can
compete even if your honor
strength lies outside of your
long suit, such as the heart
suit in this next example.

There are lots of honor cards
in this hand, but the heart
suit has only a jack. Still,
you can compete by making
a heart bid, because your
hand is so strong.

After you sort your hand into suits, you add
up all the honor points that you have. If the
total comes out to 13 points or more, you
have enough "high-card strength" to open
the bidding, which means to make the
first bid. Using our painting-auction
analogy, having the 13 "high-card points"
necessary to open the bidding is like
having the $1000 in your bank account that
you need to bid for the painting.
Let's try it out.

Norm, you try it. Suppose you have two
aces and two jacks in your hand. How many
points is that? Can you open the bidding !

Can I see the professor's
chart again?

Yeah, that
was two aces
and two jacks. Hmm. That's
about....two
times four is
eight ... and
two jacks,
you say, well
that's about
10 points?

Very good, Norm. It's ten points, four for
each ace and one for each jack. It's not
enough to open the bidding (it's like having
only $770 in your bank account when the
bidding for the painting opens at $1000).
Remember, you need 13 points to open
the bidding!

Let's try again. Suppose
you have three aces and
two jacks in your hand.
Now how many points do
you have? Can you open
the bidding? Wilma.

Oh dear, yes,
three aces is
three times 4,
plus two
jacks? That's
14 points!
Yes, if you
only need 13 points to open,
I suppose with
14 you can
surely open
the bidding!

Right, Wilma. Listen,
everyone. It will be slow
going at first to count up
your points, because you'll
have to concentrate on
remembering how many
points for each honor card,
and then you have to count
up as you go along. But
don't worry; in no time at
all you'll be counting those
points effortlessly.

Here's a tip for your class,
Bridget. There are 10 points
possible in every suit, since
4+3+2+1 = 10. So there
are 40 points in a deck of
cards. I happen to have
a chart of this.

Thanks, Professor. Did you
draw that chart yourself?

Right now, I'd like to discuss
the length part of the formula
The more length the better,
because the more trumps
you have in your hand, the
more of your opponents'
cards you can trump, and the
less your opponents will be
able to trump yours!
Look at this example.

Wow - SEVEN cards in hearts! This would
be a very powerful hand if the trump suit
is hearts, because you have both length
AND strength in it. When you obtain the
lead, you can play your ace, king, and queen
of hearts, "drawing" the opponents' trumps.
They must follow suit and after three tricks,
probably no one will have any more trumps
but you! After that, you can trump their tricks
but they can't trump yours! So you must try
very hard in the auction to "buy" the
contract with hearts as trumps. Now let's
look at a different example!

You have five honors - an
ace, a king, a queen, a jack
and a ten - one of each
type. Nevertheless, you
shouldn't open the bidding.
Do you know why not? Right!
You have only 10 high-card
points (4 for the ace, plus 3
for the king, plus 2 for the
queen, plus one for the
jack). Here's another hand.

Two aces, one king, two jacks
and one ten. How many
points? 13 (8 for the aces,
plus 3 for the king, plus 2
for the jacks = 13). You
have enough to "open the
bidding." Your long suit is
diamonds, so you open the
bidding by saying: "One
diamond." Here's a new one.

Two aces, one king, one
queen and one ten. How
many points? 13 (8 for the
aces, plus 3 for the king
plus 2 for the queen = 13).
Your longest suit is your club
suit, so you open the bidding
by saying: "One Club."

Miss O'Day,
how many
cards do you
need in a suit
to open the
bidding one
of that suit?

It depends, Sharon. Let me
explain. It's possible to
open the bidding in a suit
with only three cards in it, if
the suit is a minor suit
(diamonds or clubs). But to
open "One Spade" or "One
Heart" you need five cards
in the suit!

When you "open the
bidding" you are beginning a
little conversation with your
partner (a conversation
the opponents get to
overhear as well). The
opening bid of "One
Diamond" or "One Club"
says: "I have at least 13
high-card points. I have
at least three cards in the
suit I bid."

Your partner will "respond"
to your opening bid with a
bid of his own, trying to tell
you about his hand and
where his long suit is.
Sometimes the opponents
get into the act and the conversation might
become quite complicated
and also competitive!
Suppose you have this hand.

Three aces and two jacks,
for 14 points and enough
to open the bidding. Your
longest suit is spades. In
the olden days, way before
I was born, players would
open the bidding with "One
Spade" with this hand. That
makes sense, because
spades is your longest suit.

However, about 35 years
ago (also before I was
born!), it became popular
to open the bidding with a
major suit (spades or hearts)
only when you have 5 or
more of them. This method
is called the "five-card
major" system.

Here's a secret. Personally, I prefer the
older methods, where you need only four
cards in a major to open the bidding. But it's
easier on the nerves to have that extra
card in your trump suit when you first
start out, so that's what more than 90%
of the bridge teachers around the world
teach their students. (Later on, if
you're interested, you can enroll in the
"four-card major" course that I
plan to teach to advanced students.)

Back to our hand. Since you
don't have a five-card
major, you turn your
attention to your minors.

Both minors are three-
cards long, so you open
the lower-ranking suit,
clubs. You say "One Club."

Oh my, it
seems a
little nerve-
racking to
open with a
3-card club
suit. Do you
really think
we should
do it?

No problem, Wilma. It may
seem nerve-wracking, but
you'll soon see that most
bridge contracts are played
in a major suit or in
"notrump contracts."
This is inevitable because
major-suits and notrump
outrank the minor suits.

Don't be
scared, Wilma.

The teach
knows from
where she
talks.

I'm not
scared, Norm.

Miss O'Day,
why do we
open the
lower-
ranking?

Bidding the lower-ranking suit "saves
space" in the auction when we're describing
our suits to each other. For example,
if you open "One Diamond," and partner
has a long club suit, he cannot bid
"One Club" because clubs is lower
ranking than diamonds. He would
have to bid "Two Clubs" to tell you about
his club suit. But if you open the bidding
"One Club," and partner has a long
diamond suit, he can bid it more
economically, by bidding "One
Diamond" over "One Club."

1 - 1 no!
1 - 2 yes!

One of the important things
about bridge bidding is to
save space. You can see
for yourself that the
"vocabulary" in the language
of bridge is rather paltry.
Look at this chart here.
These are all the possible
bids in a bridge auction.

Thank you, Professor.

Nice chart! I wonder if
the bottom row should be
on top ... since you bid up
toward seven notrump.

I have that, too!

Cool. I like it. I'd also like
to mention that there are
three other words you can
say when you're bidding:
Pass, Double and Redouble.

"Pass" is a common one,
and we've already learned
that it means that you don't
want to make a bid. I'll
explain "double" and
"redouble" in a future lesson.

 

Now try this quiz.