Second Suit in Competition: Compete with Purpose

Opponents tend to get in our way a lot. That leads us to an important rule. With a quality suits, bid more actively in competition. It is important to discuss this idea with your partner in order to be on the same page. 

Lets look at some examples. 

This is a very nicely textured 5-5 hand. Do more with these, bid your second suit 3♣. Bid your hand at your first opportunity. Don't sit back now and wait, get in there! 

There is an important implication of the above bid. We are more active in the auction with quality suits, so our bid does not show extra points and is not forcing. In other words, our priority in competition is to show good suits, and set ourselves up to win the contract and be declarer. 

So what will you do when you want to force, say a hand with 18 points? Unfortunate you have to do something else that is clearly forcing, for example, bidding  3 ♦(the opponents suit) , shows a forcing hand. 

Similar ideas apply here. What would you do as North?

You have nice suits and good distribution, its correct to make a bid. Does it look like a reverse to you? Those type of rules go out the window in competition, because you don't have the luxury of waiting, or else it will only get harder to bid in future rounds of bidding (for example opponents might bid 4♦ next if you pass). Bidding 2S here is forcing really, partner won't pass it with a bad hand, they will likely correct you to 3♣.

Make sure to bid your hand as soon as possible in competition, be a bit pushy in the early rounds of bidding with good suits.

Same principles apply here

You can simply bid 3♣ without it being forcing. The focus is on competing and declaring the contract, bidding new suits in competition does not show 'high card strength'. It shows hands that are useful, that want to compete. 

lets change the above hand a bit.

Now bidding 3♣ doesn't look like a good idea. Don't overdo it and think that you always have to compete. Wait till you have good hands with good suits. Bidding 3♣ might work if you get lucky, but also might be really bad when partner has one or two cards in the suit. Defending looks fine.

Key points

1. In competition, the focus is on competing for the contract. We can't sit on our hands with good suits, we need to bid them. In other words, the main message of a bid in competition is "I have a nice suit I want to tell you about" and NOT "I have a lot of points and want to force".

2. With pure suits and distributional hands, get in the auction early and actively. Don't sit back, or else you will lose your chance.

3. Don't overdo it, often no need to compete on bad hands. Especially balanced hands.

Where to next

• -> Next: Responding to a Takeout Double: Keep It Practical
• -> Related: After 1NT: Respond More on Balanced Hands
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