Question:  During your seminar, one hand was about opening 2♣.   I like to hear 2♥, 2♠, 3♣  or 3♦ as first response to 2♣ open if my partner has a 5-card suit with 2 of the top 3 honors in that suit.  Is this correct?

Answer:  The text book answer is you respond 2♥ & 2♠ with 5+ card suit and two of the top three honors and 3♣ & 3♦ with a 6+ card suit and two of the top three honors.  In the last decade or so, however, the experts in the field have realized that responder needs to leave the 2♣ opener all of the space to describe either a balanced hand with 22+ HCP or an unbalanced hand with 81/2 tricks in a major and 91/2 tricks in the minor.

Additionally, until the responder knows which type of hand the opener has, there is no way for responder to adequately evaluate their hand.  For example ♠ 9643 ♥ 8654 ♦ 65432 ♣ —–.  Well, this is a bad hand unless partner rebids 2♥ or 2♠ showing an unbalanced hand with 5+ hearts or spades.  In which case, this is a huge hand!  Playing step responses or control responses, the responder would not be doing this hand justice by evaluating prior to finding out what the opening 2♣ hand was all about.

Finally, if Opener has a balanced 22+ point hand, there is no reason for responder to be grabbing the dummy by bidding their suit.  Just bid 2♦ and let the opener rebid 2NT (or 3NT) and then the responder can use transfers to show the long suit.

An exception to this general guideline would be if responder held a 7+ solid suit ~ a suit which will be trump – no matter what type of hand opener holds.  In other words, bidding a suit other than 2♦ is setting trump!

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