clubs or spades?

[AL78]

My partner picked up this nice hand at matchpoints:

 

♠AT82

♥K75

♦Q3

♣AKQ7

 

Normally with a hand too strong to open 1NT you open a suit then bid NT next time round. The question is, do you start with 1♣ or 1♠? If the former, what do you bid if partner responds in a red suit?

[Cyberyeti]

Playing Acol old style weak NT opens 1♠ and bids 2N (15+ GF) over 2 red, I don't know how you handle this playing strong NT Acol, you may have to open 1♣ and rebid 2N.

[mikeh]

I haven’t played 4 card majors in more than 30 years (and feel zero interest in ever doing so again), but when I did I’d open 1C every time.

 

My clubs are very strong…I’d rather a club lead on most hands than a spade lead, in the admittedly unlikely event the opps buy the contract.

 

I can’t believe, meanwhile, that there’s any realistic way the spade suit gets lost after 1C but all kinds of ways clubs vanish.

 

Improbable though it may be, imagine partner with something x Axx AKxxx Jxxx

 

After 1S 2D, 3C by opener is grotesque while over Cyber’s suggested 2N, forcing, responder has no business introducing Jxxx as a possible slam suitable suit.

 

After 1C 1D 2N, any player with a pulse would be thinking of a club slam. And this is independent of what an opening 1N would have shown.

[AL78]

I haven’t played 4 card majors in more than 30 years (and feel zero interest in ever doing so again), but when I did I’d open 1C every time.

 

My clubs are very strong…I’d rather a club lead on most hands than a spade lead, in the admittedly unlikely event the opps buy the contract.

 

I can’t believe, meanwhile, that there’s any realistic way the spade suit gets lost after 1C but all kinds of ways clubs vanish.

 

Improbable though it may be, imagine partner with something x Axx AKxxx Jxxx

 

After 1S 2D, 3C by opener is grotesque while over Cyber’s suggested 2N, forcing, responder has no business introducing Jxxx as a possible slam suitable suit.

 

After 1C 1D 2N, any player with a pulse would be thinking of a club slam. And this is independent of what an opening 1N would have shown.

 

One way the spade suit gets lost is if responder holds 5♦ and 4♠ and a rock bottom minimum for a response. It goes 1♣ - 1♦ - 2NT - Pass and you miss the best partscore. That is probably a very rare scenario though.

 

It is interesting you show an example hand with a strong responder holding clubs. I held a very weak hand with clubs:

 

♠J

♥J8

♦JT95

♣J98652

 

Partner opened 1♠ and I could not find a response other than pass. It drifted one off for -50 which shows it is not a good idea to play in the opponent's 8 card fit. The contracts were all over the place but two pairs found a club partscore, one was in 1NT+2 and the other in 3NT-1 so we didn't quite get a bottom.

[mikeh]

One way the spade suit gets lost is if responder holds 5♦ and 4♠ and a rock bottom minimum for a response. It goes 1♣ - 1♦ - 2NT - Pass and you miss the best partscore. That is probably a very rare scenario though.

 

It is interesting you show an example hand with a strong responder holding clubs. I held a very weak hand with clubs:

 

♠J

♥J8

♦JT95

♣J98652

 

Partner opened 1♠ and I could not find a response other than pass. It drifted one off for -50 which shows it is not a good idea to play in the opponent's 8 card fit. The contracts were all over the place but two pairs found a club partscore, one was in 1NT+2 and the other in 3NT-1 so we didn't quite get a bottom.

I recommend learning Walsh style responses. With a weak hand containing a 4 card major and longer diamonds, respond in the major.

 

I’ve played this style (actually I play transfer responses in my serious partnerships but the principle is the same) for at least 40 years

[Cyberyeti]

After 1S 2D, 3C by opener is grotesque while over Cyber’s suggested 2N, forcing, responder has no business introducing Jxxx as a possible slam suitable suit.

 

I was just suggesting that was what old style acol did, we would actually open 1♣ (we play a 15-bad 19 1N rebid), partner would show 0-5 with 5+♣ and no 4M and we'd play 3♣.

[nige1]

[hv=pc=n&s=sat82hk75dq3cakq7&d=s&v=n&b=15&a=1s]133|200| AL78 'Matchpoints. Normally with a hand too strong to open 1NT you open a suit then bid NT next time round. The question is, do you start with 1♣ or 1♠?

If the former, what do you bid if partner responds in a red suit?

++++++++++++++++++

2 of my long-term partnership agreed Acol with Benjamin. Until recently, our opening preference with 2 4-card suits, was undiscussed. We used judgement. Now we've also agreed the importance of consistency ..

- ♥s before ♠s (this has always been our implicit agreement).

- Majors before minors.

- ♣s before ♦s (That's what I do, anyway and I hope that's what we'll agree) :) [/hv]

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

1C gives partner max. room, and I may even do this with xxxx in clubs. (*)

And if he responds in a red suit, I will make the appropriate NT response,

perferable 1NT ( playing wide range - Crowhurst style ?! ), unless I agree,

that openers 1S rebid is forcing.

 

I think Crowhurst advocated something like a 12-16 NT rebid, even in the context

of a 12-14 opening NT, but we play 15-19.

https://www.bridgebum.com/crowhurst.php

 

(*) My Acol days are long gone, and playing 5 card major with weak NT, means I

have no issues with xxxx in clubs.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe

[Douglas43]

A 1♠ opening will often get a 1NT response and I think no trumps will usually play better from my hand.

But if partner is 4-4 majors opening 1♣ may miss a spade fit after 1♣ - 1♥ - 2NT (18-19) unless the partnership plays a checkback over 2NT as well (I don't).

And at this vulnerability the opponents may be about to bounce us in a red suit.

Hence I would probably open 1♠ and be prepared to risk 2NT or 3NT being the wrong way up.

[mikl_plkcc]

I will bid 2♠ after 1♣. This lies about the ♣ length but I think it is the least evil thing to do, considering the ♣ are AKQ.

 

If the clubs are weak but the spades are strong, I will open 1♠ playing 4-card majors.

[Tramticket]

Acol is not a single unified system and arguably, never has been. When you agree to play Acol you also need to discuss your approach with exactly two four-card suits. The choice has many downstream ramifications and I think that this is a fundamental upfront discussion.

 

In old Acol, the approach was to open one four-card suit, then bid the second. The idea was to prepare your rebid and with the black suits the opening would be 1♣ with a plan to rebid 1♠ over a red-suit response. Sorry I disagree with Cyberyeti on this.

 

In the modern world, a hand with two four-card suits is considered balanced. The plan with two four-card suits is to open 1NT if within range, or open a suit and rebid no trumps. Bidding two suits would show an unbalanced hand and promises five cards in the first-bid suit. The choices with a major and a minor are:

• Open the major: With two bids we show our main features - the major and the balanced shape. Bidding the major is mildly pre-emptive and will often force the opponents to compete at the two level or remain silent. On the other hand, we lose some bidding space and often have to respond 1NT, which is an awkward response in Acol and can wrong-side no trump contracts. We might also lose the club suit as pointed out by Mike.
  
• Open the minor: This preserves bidding space and allows partner to respond naturally at the one level. On the other hand, if partner doesn't respond in our major, we don't show it until the third round of bidding, if at all. We will not open the major suit very often, so why not go all of the way and play five-card majors?
  
• Choose the opening, based on other factors in the hand. This is superficially attractive, but can create uncertainty later in the auction as Nige1 seems to have found.
  

 

Personally I agree with Nige1's new approach:

- ♥s before ♠s.

- Majors before minors.

- ♣s before ♦s .

[Cyberyeti]

Acol is not a single unified system and arguably, never has been. When you agree to play Acol you also need to discuss your approach with exactly two four-card suits. The choice has many downstream ramifications and I think that this is a fundamental upfront discussion.

 

In old Acol, the approach was to open one four-card suit, then bid the second. The idea was to prepare your rebid and with the black suits the opening would be 1♣ with a plan to rebid 1♠ over a red-suit response. Sorry I disagree with Cyberyeti on this.

 

In the modern world, a hand with two four-card suits is considered balanced. The plan with two four-card suits is to open 1NT if within range, or open a suit and rebid no trumps. Bidding two suits would show an unbalanced hand and promises five cards in the first-bid suit. The choices with a major and a minor are:

• Open the major: With two bids we show our main features - the major and the balanced shape. Bidding the major is mildly pre-emptive and will often force the opponents to compete at the two level or remain silent. On the other hand, we lose some bidding space and often have to respond 1NT, which is an awkward response in Acol and can wrong-side no trump contracts. We might also lose the club suit as pointed out by Mike.
  
• Open the minor: This preserves bidding space and allows partner to respond naturally at the one level. On the other hand, if partner doesn't respond in our major, we don't show it until the third round of bidding, if at all. We will not open the major suit very often, so why not go all of the way and play five-card majors?
  
• Choose the opening, based on other factors in the hand. This is superficially attractive, but can create uncertainty later in the auction as Nige1 seems to have found.
  

 

Personally I agree with Nige1's new approach:

- ♥s before ♠s.

- Majors before minors.

- ♣s before ♦s .

 

There's old style and there's very old style. I agree with what you said, a lot changed when Crowhurst brought his book out with wide range 1N rebids and the 2♣ artificial enquiry over this. We have used it for a long time and playing 15-bad 19 has the strange side effect that the 1N rebid is nearly forcing. We pretty much play a 5 card spade but with 44(32) open 1♥ when outside the NT range.

[EricK]

A 4 card major opening is quite preemptive. In fact that’s one of its main advantages. But preempting also preempts partner, and the stronger you are, the less you will want to do that.

 

Here you want to leave room to find the best contract and for partner to be able to make descriptive bids. 1S will very often get a 1NT response which here not only wrong sides a NT contract, but doesn’t tell you what suits he has either. 1C will nearly always get a response in a suit and will allow you to bid NT yourself.

 

Compare this to holding the same hand but with ♣A732. If you are playing a strong NT, then it is far more reasonable to open 1S. We preempt LHO, without really affecting our ability to bid constructively to game if partner has enough (as he will be strong enough to make a descriptive 2 level bid).