Some Bidding Techniques

Benjaminised (or Benji) Acol(Part II)

Benji Acol Becoming very popular Pre-emptive at the 2 level instead of

3 Note:

Must be agreed beforehand with partner Need a new way of bidding strong Twos No change to other parts of your system

1 Level and 3 Level openings remain as they were

Benji Acol Invented by Albert Benjamin In a nutshell:

2 is an ‘Acol Two’ in any suit 2 is 23+ points or Game Force (Acol

2) 2 is 6-10 points and 6 Hearts 2 is 6-10 points and 6 Spades

We will discuss the weak 2 openings in this session 2 2

We dealt with the strong openings last time 2 2 And balanced hand bidding

Weak Twos Now that your 2 & 2 openings are

weak We need to consider two aspects:

HCP Strength Suit Strength

High Card Point Strength At most 10

With 11 and a six card suit you have a opening 1 level bid

At least 6 Stretch down to 5 if all points in the long

suit With a T & 9

Strength of Suit It is important to have some strength Don’t open a weak 2 if your suit is

horrible This would be a mis-description More detail:->

Strength of Suit You should have:

TWO of the top FOUR honours or THREE of the top SIX cards:->

Strength of SuitExcellent

A-K-9-8-7-6K-Q-J-7-6-5A-J-T-5-4-3Q-J-T-5-4-3

Only Just

K-J-7-6-5-4A-T-9-4-3-2Q-J-8-7-6-5J-T-9-7-6-5

Bad

Q-7-6-5-4-3J-T-7-4-3-2A-T-7-6-5-4K-T-8-7-6-5

Responding to Weak Twos The most common response is PASS With 16+ HCP or <7 LTC there are 3

types of response Change of suit 2NT Simple raise

Change of Suit Response VERY unusual Very strong hand that doesn’t want

to play in the bid suit Forcing for one round 5+ cards

Very similar to change of suit after an opening 3

Simple Raise Response Weak & pre-emptive NOT invitational Designed to make life difficult for the

opponents

2NT Response The main strong option A conventional response (Ogust) Asks for more description of the

opening hand Please be more precise about

HCP strength Strength of your suit

Opener’s re-bids After Pass - Pass After simple raise – Pass – more on

this later After change of suit –

Treat this the same as a change of suit after a 3 or 4 level pre-empt

After 2NT :--

Opener’s re-bids after 2NT

OR – 3NT shows exactly A-K-Q-x-x-x in the major bid

Suit Quality HCP BidWeak Weak 3

Strong Weak 3

Weak Strong 3

Strong Strong 3

Opener’s re-bids after 2NTSuit Quality

HCP Bid

Weak Weak 3Strong Weak 3Weak Strong 3Strong Strong 3

I like to think of the & bid as easy to rememberFor & – bid higher with more HCP

Responder re-bids after 2NT is answered

With a weak 3 opening from partner continuations are often a guess

With a weak 2 you now know a lot more

And can have an educated auction BUT In this context – what is a strong

suit?

When is a suit strong? The suit is STRONG IF and ONLY IF it has TWO of the top THREE honours

K-Q-6-5-4-3 counts as strong A-J-T-9-8-7 counts as weak (With the 3 top honours between you

you’ll take 6 tricks)

When are the HCP strong? 6 – 7 is weak 9 – 10 is strong 8 is a judgement

ExampleYou open 2 and partner responds 2NT – now what?

KQT765Q75J676

JT9543AK78654

3 3

Example

KQJT978767664

A2A32A9832AT3

32 2NT

3NT

Example

KT9873J76K664

J2AK2AQJ32Q83

2 2NT3 3

Example

KQT983J76K664

J2AK2AQJ32Q83

2 2NT3 4

Example

AK76425439263

8532KQ6543J82

2 3

TQJ976JT87AT7

QJ9AKT8AKQ954Pass