I want to go through the most common hand types you'll be dealt and talk about the "feel" of each one. When you pick up a hand, the bidding pattern for that hand should come to mind almost automatically. Let's dive into some examples and hopefully it becomes clearer.
Balanced hands at a glance
Here is the whole balanced picture in one place — each point range and the bidding pattern that goes with it:
| Points | How you bid the balanced hand |
|---|---|
| 12–14 | Open at the 1 level, then rebid 1NT — or raise partner with 4-card support |
| 15–17 | Open 1NT |
| 18–19 | Open at the 1 level, then rebid 2NT — or jump to 4♥/4♠ with 4-card support |
| 20–22 | Open 2NT |
Let's start with the balanced hands
In other articles we'll do the same for the unbalanced hands. For now, let's build a feel for each balanced range in turn.
The simple 12–14 balanced hand
This is a simple 1♣ opening with 12–14 points (or 11, if you open balanced 11s too, depending on partnership style). The idea should be: "I've already opened my hand showing 12–14, I have no extra and basically nothing more to say. I'll keep bidding, of course, if partner makes a forcing bid — but otherwise it isn't up to me to push the bidding high. I've done enough already." In other words, I'll pass at my first opportunity.
The way this hand is normally bid is as follows.
Pattern: Open, then rebid 1NT — or open, then raise partner once. These minimal actions convey a simple 11–14 hand; anything more would be inappropriate unless partner makes a forcing bid.
In the auction above, partner knows you're 11–14 balanced without four spades. Most of the features of your hand have been explained, and partner is now in an excellent position to decide whether to bid on.
The 15–17 balanced hand
This one is easy — we open 1NT (in most systems 15–17 is standard these days). Once again partner is in an excellent position to picture our future: partscore or game. We also have plenty of tools available — like Stayman and transfers — for partner to describe their hand and bring us into the conversation. Overall, 1NT is an excellent start: it shows a lot about our hand immediately.
And once again, it would be inappropriate to bid again unless partner forces the bidding, or we are supporting partner.
When you've already shown your hand, you can confidently pass.
It's worth flagging an exception: in modern bridge the no-trump opener does sometimes come back in with a takeout double, showing shortage in the opponents' suit, as an effort to compete. That's beyond the scope of this article.
The 18–19 balanced hand
The typical feel for this hand is to open at the 1 level and then rebid 2NT — or strongly support partner's major, usually raising it to game. The key thing to keep in mind is that you have to bid it differently from the simple 11–14 hand. It would be wrong to open and then just pass at your first opportunity, the way you'd happily do with an 11–14. If you did that here, there's no reason partner would expect 18–19, and you won't reach the right contract.
So the feeling of the hand should be: "I'm going to open at the 1 level, and then jump to 2NT — showing a strong balanced hand. Partner will know I'm not 15–17, because that range opens 1NT."
On this 19-point hand you've rebid 2NT, and partner is in an excellent position to gauge our combined assets. You've also denied four spades — with four spades the standard treatment is to bid 4♠ rather than 2NT.
The 20–22 balanced hand
The standard approach here is to open 2NT. Once again the same rules apply as when we open 1NT: we have a big hand, but we've shown a big hand with our very first bid — so partner is now in the driver's seat.
Summary
Overall, you can see there's a pattern. Before our first bid, we should have firmly in mind roughly where our hand sits — and often a plan for how we'll bid it. Of course it doesn't always go perfectly; the opponents interrupt us all the time. But developing a feel for each balanced hand type will help you make simple, accurate decisions with confidence, which will definitely improve your scores.