Bidding Introduction

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Each deal begins with an auction where players bid in a clockwise fashion beginning with the dealer. The auction determines who will play the hand, which suit will be the trump suit, or whether notrump will be chosen, and how many tricks will be required to make the contract.  See our Introduction to the Auction article to review the mechanics of a bridge auction.

The contract level required to earn a game bonus depends on the chosen strain.  See our Bridge Scoring article for details.  Each partnership uses their bids to choose the right strain and level.  Each player must evaluate their hand and what their partner has shown to judge whether their partnership can win enough tricks to earn a game or a slam bonus.  

Hand evaluation is a complex subject. There are many factors involved. We recommend starting with a simple approach based on High Card Points (HCP).

Each of your high cards (Ace, King, Queen, Jack) is assigned a point value.

• Ace = 4 points
• King = 3 points
• Queen = 2 points 
• Jack = 1 point

Add up the points of all your high cards to determine your hand’s high card points. There are 40 High Card Points in a deck. An average hand has 10 HCP.

The combined HCP of your partnership suggest how many tricks may be available.

The table below summarizes the strength you and your partner need in your two hands to make a contract at different levels of bidding.

In the 1^st or 2^nd seat of the auction, you focus on whether a making game contract may be available to your partnership. Since a major suit game or a notrump game can often be made with a combined 25 HCP, you don’t want to pass with 12 or more HCP (about half the points needed for game). If you and your partner both pass with 12 HCP hands, you will miss a lot of game bonuses.

With 12+ points, you want to bid, not pass. Make a bid which describes your distribution. See our “5-Card Majors” for a discussion of what suit to open.

When you find an 8+ card fit in a suit, you can consider the power of using a trump card to win a trick in a side-suit (a suit which isn’t the trump suit). If your partner or the opponents lead a card in a suit which you are out of, you can play a card in the trump suit. Your trump card will win unless an opponent is also out of the suit which was led and plays a higher card. Winning a trick in a side suit with a trump card is called Ruffing.

The layout to the right illustrates the trick taking power of ruffing. On this deal, North-South cannot win 7 tricks in notrump (without a trump suit). Similarly, East-West cannot win 7 tricks in notrump. The defenders opening lead gives them the tempo to establish 7 winners before declarer can win 7 tricks.

In a trump contract, ruffs can be used to win more tricks. Ruffs can prevent your opponents from cashing their winners in a side suit. Tricks can be won by ruffing losers in the short hand (the hand with fewer trumps).

In the example to the right, North can win 9 tricks if spades are trump. East wins just 1 heart trick defending a spade contract because South has the ♥Ace which can be used to win the 1^st or 2^nd round of hearts. North-South can use trumps (spades), to ruff the 3^rd and 4^th rounds of hearts.

Similarly, if East declares a heart contract, ruffing power allows East to win 9 tricks. It is worth noting that one less trick is available if South declares a spade contract, or West declares a spade contract. This is because West can lead a club through North’s ♣AQJ, and North can lead a diamond through East’s ♦AQJ. This gives the defenders the tempo to navigate a defensive ruff. A holding like AQJ benefits from having the lead come up to it. 50% of the time, the King will be behind the AQJ and a finesse will lose. If the lead comes up to the AQJ, you will always be able to win the first 2 tricks in the suit. See our article on “Right-Siding Contracts” for more on this topic.

To estimate the potential of ruffs (using a trump to win a trick in a side suit) to provide extra tricks, we assign “Support Points” to our shorter suits. If you have 3+ card support for your partner’s suit and you have a side-suit with 2 or fewer cards, you can add “Shortness Points” per the table below to your HCP to determine your “Support Points.”

Here is an example of using Support Points to evaluate your strength as responder (opener’s partner) after your partner opens 1♠ showing 12+ HCP and 5+ spades (see our “5-card Major” article). If responder (opener’s partner) has ♠A32 ♥2 ♦A732 ♣Q8542, here is how responder would evaluate their hand.

1. Responder has 10 HCP (2 Aces x 4 + 1 Queen x 2) which is an average HCP holding.

2. Since responder has 3-card spade support, Shortness Points can be considered.

3. Responder has a singleton heart (1 card in hearts). Responder’s side suit singleton is evaluated as 3 Shortness Points.

4. Responder adds their HCP and their Shortness Points to determine their Support Points. Responder has 13 Support Points (10 HCP + 3 Shortness Points).

To assess whether a game may be available, responder adds their Support Points (13) to the HCP shown be their partner (12). This gives their partnership 25 HCP. 10 tricks are required to earn a game bonus with spades as trump. 25 or more points are typically required to win 10 tricks. Here responder knows their partnership has an 8-card or better spade suit and has 25 or more points. So responder will want to force to game and set spades as the trump suit.

The standard way to force to game with 3-card support for opener’s major is to bid a new suit at the 2-level and then support your partner’s major. The auction might begin as follows:

This sequence sets spades as trump and is 100% forcing to game (4♠, 10 tricks with spades as trump).

If responder’s hand was a bit weaker, e.g. ♠K32 ♥2 ♦A732 ♣Q8542, responder would have 12 Support Points (9 HCP + 3 Support Points). Opener is expected to have 12 or more points. Their partnership is expected to have 24 or more points. Since 25 points is typically required to win 10 tricks, the partnership might be a point shy for winning 10 tricks with spades as trump being a good bet. When responder has 11-12 points in support for opener’s major, responder should invite game, asking opener to bid 4♠ (game in spades) if opener is more than a minimum. Responder could use the sequence below to invite opener to bid 4♠.

Opener will bid 4♠ with 14 or more points, and pass with 13 or less points.

As we progress, we will want the above sequence to show 11-12 Support Points with 4 or more spades, and we would use a 1NT response followed by a jump to 3♠ to show an invitational (i.e. 11-12 Support Points) with exactly 3 spades. That helps opener judge whether to bid 4♠ in borderline situations.

If responder’s hand was a bit weaker, e.g. ♠K32 ♥82 ♦A732 ♣Q852, responder has 9 HCP and just 1 Shortness Point for their doubleton heart. Responder has 10 Support Points (9 HCP + 1 Support Point). Responder doesn’t have enough strength to invite game. So responder raises to 2♠.

This shows 6-10 Support Points and 3 or more spades. Opener will stop below game unless they have a strong hand. With 15-17 points, opener might bid 3♠ to invite responder to bid 4♠ if they have 9 or 10 points.

Note: Whether a game is available isn’t solely about points. How well the hands fit together is important to consider. Later we will teach a way to invite game and learn how well the hands fit together. Simply using a spade raise to invite game will suffice for the near term.

If opener has 18 or more points, opener can bid game by jumping to 4♠.  If opener has slam interest opposite a simple raise, opener can use a game try, control bids, and/or splinter bids to look for a slam.