[kylekatarn]

Just played a match with a random partner. My hand was roughly 13-14 HCP (I don't remember exactly) with 5 clubs, AQ1087, a tripleton in spades Q109 and a doubleton in hearts. I opened 1 club. Opponent passed. My partner responded 1 spade. Holding three spades, I responded 2 Spades. Holding only 5 clubs I did not have enough club support to rebid my suit. The bid ended at 2 Spades. When I saw my partner's hand I noticed he had 4 spades and 4 clubs (KJ96). Now, clearly our club fit was much stronger, possibly being able to make a 3 or 4 club contract. However according to bridge norms there is no way for me to rebid my club suit without 6 cards in the suit and my partner, holding 4 spades, would much rather bid his major than support my minor (despite having 4 card support). My question is, how can we make this a minor suit contract?

[mike777]

IN general I would not raise on 3s without a stiff or void. Some never raise on 3 card support.

IN this case your rebid options are 1nt or 2c. I would guess the majority will rebid 1nt to show your balanced hand and roughly 13-14 pts.

Some might prefer to rebid that 5 card club suit with no stoppers in the unbid suits.

ONce you rebid 1nt and assuming you are not playing any fancy conventions pard can rebid:
2c with a weak hand or pass
3c with an inv hand or 2nt depending on his hand type.

with a gf hand he will need to bid 3nt or a new suit with only 4s and 4c.

good luck!

[hrothgar]

Hi there

Following the auction 1♣ - (P) - 1♠ - (P), there are a number of radically different bidding styles for opener's rebid.

All of them are reasonable and (arguably) none of them are significantly better. The most important consideration is that you and your partner come to an agreement with respect to your bidding style.

I am going to describe three different styles to give you an idea how diverse this can be.

Style 1: Raise partner to 2♠ absolutely promises 4 card support.
(FWIW, I associate this style with players from Poland and France)

Style 2: Most raises to 2♠ contain 4 ♠. However, with an exceptional hand, opener may chose to raise to 2♠ with three.

♠ A32
♥ 3
♦ A652
♣ AT953

Key characteristics for this hand include

1. A side suit singleton
2. The hand with shortness includes both a trump control (to stop the opponents from drawing our trump) and low trump to ruff with
3. The hand's values are predominantly quick tricks (Aces and Kings)

All of which suggests playing a trump contract rather than NT

Style 3 is a more aggressive version of style 2 and permits a raise on hands like the following

♠ KT8
♥ 62
♦ KQ5
♣ KQ953

[steve2005]

Also of note if you do rebid 1N and partner bids ♣ as signoff or INV etc.

You may be in 4-3 fit if partner has 3=4=3=3 distribution, so it's not so simple as you may think to play in clubs when it's right. Also may have poor 4-card suit you don't want to be in 4-4 clubs.

with 5 clubs you want to show if you can.