Bid Outside the Box

Jan Eric Larsson

Today’s bidding systems have grown from  When our side is weaker.
the early days of contract bridge. Most of  When the deal is fairly equal in strength.
the time, you try to exchange information  When there are wilder distributions.
about high cards and distribution while
naming plausible final contracts. Let us look at each of these situations and
see what first principles we would wish for
West East in a bidding system.
1h1 1s2
2s3 4s4 Our Side is Stronger
First assume that our side holds most of the
1) “I think I can make one heart.” high card strength, and that the distributions
2) “I have spades.” are reasonably balanced, (or at least not
3) “If so we can make two spades.” extreme).
4) “Then we can make four spades.”
In this case we want to conduct precise and
Of course, many conventions and artificial constructive bidding to find the correct part
bids have been invented, but the basis score, game, or slam. At the same time, we
remains. Most bids show extra length or do not want to give away more information
strength and name a potential final contract. than necessary to the defense. I propose the
In the sequence above, 1s is the only following principles, (nothing new here).
forcing bid.
Keep Low with Strong Hands
What would be the result if we tried first to In constructive bidding, we need to preserve
formulate general principles for what a bidding space and keep the level low. Each
bidding system should accomplish, and then extra bid gives us twice as many sequences
designed the system from scratch, based on to use in the search for the best contract.
those principles?
The Weaker Hand Should Tell
This question has been asked many times When a stronger and a weaker hand meet,
before. Here are my suggestions. the weaker hand should describe itself to the
stronger one. It is easier to tell about fewer
Bidding Principles features, and it is easier for the one who sees
What do we want a bidding system to be most of the strength to make good decisions.
like? Here are some simple criteria:
The Stronger Hand Should Declare
 Precise in constructive bidding. It is also good if the stronger hand becomes
 Aggressive in competition. declarer. The lead will come towards the
 Easy to remember. hand with more high cards, and it is more
difficult for the defense if less of the
This is probably so obvious that no one will strength is visible in dummy. If the weaker
object. But let us look at these criteria at hand has described itself in the bidding, it is
work in different types of situations. The also better if it ends up as dummy.
situations I have in mind are:
Analysis
 When our side is stronger, (and the deal Natural systems are only half good
is reasonably balanced). according to the above principles. One

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advantage in Standard American and similar s A-Q-5-3 s K-8-7-4-2
systems is that an opening bid promises a h K-8 ┌─┐ h 7-5
fairly strong hand, and that this hand d K-Q-7 └─┘ d A-2
immediately grabs a potential trump suit. c A-6-4-3 c 10-9-8-2
We want the stronger hand to declare.
In a natural system, the bidding could go:
Five-card majors may have a small
advantage over four-card majors, since the West East
bidding starts lower with some balanced 1c 1s
hands. 3s 4s

But there are also several weaknesses. First, East grabs the spades and the contract may
we open too high with many strong hands. go down with a heart lead.
For example, the opening bid 2N is bad.
With 20-21 points, the bidding is already at In 5542, the bidding could go:
the three level, and the strong hand is
describing itself. The same goes for a West East
forcing 2c, especially in the sequence 2c – 1c 1h1
2d; 2N. 3s 4s

There are more examples of bad sequences 1) Transfer to spades.

in the second round, for example, 1c – 1d;
2N. A jump in a suit also tends to violate the West becomes declarer and the contract is
principle of saving space, for example, 1h – clearly better.
1s; 3h and we have preempted ourselves.
In a strong club system, the bidding may go:
Recently, the so-called 5542 system has
become popular, especially in Europe. In West East
this system, strong balanced hands, (17-19), 1c1 1d2
are opened 1c, and after that responder uses 1N3 2h4
transfers on the one level. In this way, you 2s 3c
can avoid raising the level with a strong 4s pass
balanced hand. Another advantage with this
method is the use of transfers after 1c, 1) 16+
which increases the chances that the stronger 2) 0-7
hand becomes declarer. 3) 16-18 balanced
4) transfer
In my opinion, Culbertson’s most brilliant
invention was to make 1-over-1 and 2-over- If we could manage to build a working
1 forcing. At the same time, these bids also system around the idea, it seems that a weak
are a major weakness in most natural responder should use transfers, or bid
systems. If opener is strong (16-20) and shorter suits first. An interesting idea would
responder is weak (6-10), it would be much be a structure where the responses mean
better if responder described his hand and either 6-12 and a transfer, or 13+ and a
opener only listened, and if responder could natural suit.
avoid naming good suits first. For example:

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One possible solution is to use circular describes his hand (with mostly artificial
transfer responses at the one level. It works step responses).
as follows:
Precision has one weakness, the natural suit
1c 1d 6+ four or more hearts responses, but that is easy to fix, by using
1h 6+ four or more spades positive transfer responses:
1s 6+ balanced
1N 6+ four or more diamonds
1c 1d 0-7
1d 1h 6+ four or more spades 1h 8+ five or more spades
1s 6+ balanced or clubs 1s 8+ no five-card suit
1N 6+ four or more hearts 1N 8+ five or more clubs
2c 8+ five or more diamonds
1h 1s 6+ balanced or minor 2d 8+ five or more hearts
1N 6+ four or more spades
After a positive response, opener’s relay is a
1s 1N 6-10 negative Beta asking bid, that is, asking for controls.

The subsequent bidding is the same as in a In our own strong club system, the
natural system, but after opening 1c or 1d, Cottontail Club, responder uses transfers in
opener shows a minimal balanced hand by a circle between hearts, spades, and
completing the transfer, while bidding 1N balanced hands after 1c – 1d. If opener bids
shows 18-19 balanced. hearts or spades, it is taken out of the
transfer circle. For example:
Using these responses, responder avoids
grabbing his own four-card suit as trump, West East
and does not immediately wrong-side a 1c 1d
contract where opener may be strong and 1h ?
responder very weak.
Now, 1s by responder shows a balanced
Another idea along the same lines is to use hand, while 1N shows spades.
combined weak and strong jump shifts,
where the strong version is natural and the We have also switched the positive transfer
weak is a transfer. For example: responses so that 1N shows hearts and 2d
shows clubs. In this way, responder avoids
West East grabbing notrump when holding a club suit.
1h 2s
A Polish Idea
Here, East shows either 12+ and a good six- However, 1c is not the lowest opening bid.
card spade suit, or 4-10 and a long club suit. We forgot pass! The pass gives us twice as
Opener will complete the transfer with a many sequences up to a certain level, when
minimum opening had. compared to 1c.

Strong 1c In the eighties, a number of strong pass

For strong hands, I am quite convinced that systems proliferated, and many of them
Precision and other strong club systems are came from Poland.
superior. The opener starts with 1c and
responder describes himself. If you use the The theoretically most interesting Polish
“Greek alphabet” asking bids, opener asks weak opening system is Delta. The opening
(and grabs trump suits), while responder bids are as follows:

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pass 13+ all distributions This is, without doubt, a negative effect that
1c 8-12 no shortness impacts all conventional bids. My opinion is
1d 0-7 all distributions that the advantages of having the strong
1h 8-12 short h hand as declarer and the weak, “sold” hand
1s 8-12 short s as dummy, outweighs this drawback.
1N 8-12 short d and five in a major
2c 8-12 short d and no major As a counter, you may decide that partner’s
2d 8-12 short c and no major pass (or redouble) invites our side to play in
2h 8-12 short c, 5+ hearts the doubled denomination, while other bids
2s 8-12 short c, 5+ spades continue the constructive exchange.
2N 8-12 short c, 55+ in majors
Our Side is Weaker
“Short” means singleton or void. After an Let us now look at the case when our side is
initial pass, responder uses the same method, the weaker one. Here, the objectives are
but with the point limit 6-10 or 11+ instead. completely different. The two things we
want to achieve are to find a fit and bid this
We will not look at the continuations, but as high as possible, and to preempt the
just note that there is a relay system where opponents in general. Again, we do not want
the stronger hand bids the nearest bid and to give away more information than we have
the weaker hand describes itself, using to. I propose the following criteria.
artificial methods.
Open as Often as Possible
The two creators of the Polish weak opening It is a clear advantage to be the first side to
systems, Lukasz Slawinski and Stanislaw tell something about our distribution, in
Ruminski, have a clear philosophy, where order to find a potential fit.
pass is used as the strong opening bid,
because it is the lowest bid, and a weak East dealer, East-West vulnerable
responder describes his hand by bidding
short suits, so as not to grab trump suits. s Q-8-7-3
Likewise, a weak opener bids short suits. h J-9
Delta really follows our stated principles. d J-4
c J-10-6-3-2
Tips for the Defense
Against strong club and pass, it is a good s 6-4-2 s J-9
idea to overcall on weak hands, to remove h A-K-2 ┌─┐ h Q-10-8-6-3
bidding space. But since responder gets d K-8-6-3 └─┘ d A-Q-9-5
extra bids (pass and double), you have to get c A-7-4 c 9-8
in with at least 1s versus a strong club and
1d versus a strong pass. s A-K-10-5
h 7-5-4
In my experience, it is good to overcall with d 10-7-2
two of a minor. It is low enough that the c K-Q-5
opponents often prefer to bid, rather than
look for a penalty double, but high enough West North East South
to steal valuable bidding space.   pass 1s
pass 2s pass pass
A Drawback with Artificial Methods pass
There is a drawback with the methods
suggested so far, namely that they give the South opens a four-card spade. West’s
opponents a chance to double the artificial distribution is not ideal for a take-out
bids to show a suit or recommend a lead. double, and partner has passed, so West

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passes. East is too weak to enter at the three  Side suits are allowed. There is no
level. West leads the ace of hearts and East- reason that the opponents should know
West wins two hearts, two diamonds, and that a side suit breaks well.
the ace of clubs. North-South writes 110 in
the protocol, while East-West can make 4h. The same goes for higher preempts. Assume
The example is from Hughes, Building a that you pick up, non-vulnerable:
Bidding System, 2005.
S Q-J-5-3 h 4 d Q-J-10-9-5 c 10-6-2
However, there are two drawbacks to
opening aggressively. Often, the opponents This is a good preempt. Open 3d. You have
are the stronger side and get the final few enough points that our side will not
contract. In these cases, the less you have have a playable contract in spades.
told declarer about the distribution, the
better. And if partner is the strong hand, you The same principle says that the weaker an
do not want to preempt him. opening bid is, the less information it should
give away.
Open High with Weak Hands
Thus, the theory is that you should open West dealer, North-South vulnerable
high with weak hands, or not open at all.
This is the idea behind weak two openings sK
and higher-level preempts. h 9-4-3
d 7-6-3-2
Weak Openings Should be Non-Specific c K-J-7-5-2
I think standard theory is wrong about what
a weak opening bid should look like. It is s Q-J-8-6-4 s A-5-3-2
usually recommended that a weak two h J-10-7-6-5-2 ┌─┐ h Q-8
opening should fulfill demands like: dK └─┘ d 8-5-4
c6 c Q-10-9-8
 Narrow point interval, say 6-10 HCP.
 Six-card suit. s 10-9-7
 At least one of A, K or Q. h A-K
 No four-card major on the side. d A-Q-J-10-9
c A-4-3
The motivation for this is to make the weak
two opening useful for constructive bidding, West North East South
so that partner does not suffer, in case he is 1s pass 3s 4d
the strong hand at the table. pass 5d pass pass
pass
In my opinion, this reasoning is all wrong.
The only reason for opening a weak two is In the Spring Nationals 1992, Paul Soloway
that we hope that the opponents have the opened 1s as West. The lead was the six of
highest contract. What we actually want is to hearts. Declarer, David Feldman, played
open as high as we dare, and show as little spades to East’s ace, and concluded that
useful information as possible. West must have either the king of diamonds
or queen of clubs to open. He laid down the
Here are my criteria for a weak two opening: ace of diamonds and made the contract.

 The weaker the better. In my opinion, the main error is that East-
 Any five-card suit will do, and maybe West used super-weak opening bids in the
even a reasonable four. majors on the one level. Note the difference
if West had opened 2s showing 0-9 points

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and any five cards in spades. Let us assume You often cannot risk a bid after a natural
that the rest of the bidding would have been preempt, but now you can use a probing
the same. Declarer has no particular reason double.
to assume the king of diamonds or queen of
clubs to be with West. Versus 2d Multi you can use the following
defense:
Many systems open one of a five-card major
with as little as eight points. In the Swedish X 11-14 balanced or 18+
Magic Diamond, you open one in a major on 2h/s 11-17 natural
a four-card suit and 8-11 points. In the 2N 15-17 balanced
Polish strong pass system Regres, you open
one of a major on 3-4 cards and 8-12 points. Against a natural weak 2s you can hardly
All these systems aim to be aggressive, but venture a double with 11-14 balanced. The
in the five-card major case, you have told 2s opening will also preempt hearts, which
the opponents that one of the suits does not is not the case with 2d Multi.
belong to them. In Magic Diamond this is
less clear, and in Regres, the opened suit Assume that you hold the following hand,
may be the opponents’ best trump (!). and your right-hand opponent opens.
Regres is better than Magic Diamond is
better than super weak five-card majors. S A-10-2 h K-J-5-3 d Q-9-6-4 c Q-6

Transfer Preempts and Multi If the opening bid is 2s, it is dangerous to

Now assume that we open a preempt, and enter the bidding. A-10 of spades may be
that partner holds the strong hand. two defensive tricks, while three diamonds
According to our proposed principles, or hearts can play out very badly.
shouldn’t we describe our hand, since it is
the weaker one, and use transfers? But if the opponents open 2d Multi, the
above hand is ideal for a probing double.
There are several conventions based on this You risk almost nothing, and if two
idea, for example transfer preempts and 2d diamonds actually is the best contract for the
Multi. opponents, they have no easy way of finding
that out.
Again, I think that the reasoning is wrong.
The entire idea behind a preemptive bid is Preemptive Bids Should Be Natural
that the opponents have the highest contract. The conclusion is that preemptive bids
If we want to bid something constructively, should be natural. It does not matter that the
we should open low. weaker hand grabs the trump suit. We are
not supposed to play anyway.
If the opponents have no defense against
transfer preempts, no damage is done by the If the opponents have a good defense against
transfer. They will be as preempted anyway. Multi and transfer preempts, we give them
But assume they use a defense like this: unnecessary opportunities to enter the
bidding with medium hands.
X weak takeout or 18+
cuebid strong takeout We can also note another thing. If you want
to use transfer preempts or Multi, your
The cuebid is a bid in the shown suit. hands should tend to be constructive. If you
prefer really weak, undisciplined preempts
Suddenly the opponents have the chance to (Bergen-style), they should be natural.
distinguish between some important hand
types. Most important is the weak takeout.

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A current fashion in Sweden is to combine hand, we cannot yet guess what side will
Multi with semi-constructive bids of 2h/s have the highest contract.
showing 10-13 and a six-card suit. Here, it
may be better to switch the meanings, so Thus, it makes sense to start frequently and
that 2d contains the 10-13 hands, while the low, but also to be a bit unspecific, until we
direct 2h/s are weak. It will be more know who holds the balance of the points.
difficult to handle the constructive bidding
after 2d, but much more difficult for well- In this interval, I think four-card majors are
prepared opponents to handle the natural more efficient than five-card majors, since
weak twos. they will discover more trump fits,
especially if responder raises on three-card
Another modern idea is to let 2d Multi be support. On the other hand, five-card majors
either weak majors or strong minors. In this will gain on some 5-4 fits that can be raised
case, 2d may be 16-19 with strong to the three level immediately.
diamonds. This may be a way of battling the
weak double. A pass from responder can Five-Card Majors
suggest to play 2d doubled. When using five-card major openings, you
immediately grab a potential trump suit, and
Constructive or Preemptive? you clearly tell the opponents that your suit
Which is the more important objective, to is not for them. Thus, it is good to apply this
bid constructively to the optimal contract, or to strong openings hands, from 12-13 hcp
to try and prevent the opponents from and upwards. It is a bad idea to open five-
finding their optimal contract? There are two card majors on very low point ranges.
obvious truths. You must be able to reach
good contracts, and the practical answer to Three-Card Minors
the question is usually decided by personal If you open five-card majors, you need some
style. way of handling weak, balanced hands, and
the most popular method is three-card
However, over 70 % of all boards played in minors. With a strong hand, you open low,
modern bridge involve bids from both sides. but you are more vulnerable to opponent
According to hard statistics, competitive intervention.
bidding is more important. In my opinion,
the conclusion is obvious. You must think South dealer, East-West vulnerable
about preempting your opponents, and you
can count on undisturbed bidding relatively s 7-5
seldom. Being aggressive will pay off, and h A-Q-5
staying low is less advantageous than it may d Q-J-10-8-4
seem. In today’s modern bridge, you need to c 10-9-4
bid as much as you dare!
s A-10-4 s K-9-3
Intermediate Opening Hands h K-J-8-3 ┌─┐ h 10-6-4-2
So far we have formulated some principles d A-K-6 └─┘ d 7-5
for strong hands, where probability says that c A-3-2 c K-J-8-6
our side is likely to have the highest
contract, and for weak hands, where the s Q-J-8-6-2
opponents most probably should declare. Let h 9-7
us turn to the intermediate opening hands, d 9-3-2
around 11-15 points. c Q-7-5

It is not so difficult to see what we should do

with such hands. Just by looking at our own

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 West North East South We also open a 5332 with a three-card suit,
   pass which is higher than the five-card suit, to
1c 2d X pass block out the opponents’ suit.
3N pass pass pass
West dealer, no-one vulnerable
Jill Meyers opened 1c and Sabine Auken
overcalled 2d. Randi Montin doubled to s E-9-7-5
show strength and one or two majors. But h kn-6
which one? Meyers took her chances with d K-10-5
3N, which went down after a diamond lead. c D-8-7-2
This example from Venice Cup 2001 in
Paris shows how vulnerable three-card s D-10-4 s kn-6
minors can be. h E-10-9-8-3 ┌─┐ h K-7-4
d kn-9 └─┘ d D-6-4-2
If you have a weak hand, a three-card c K-5-4 c E-10-9-3
opening may “steal” the opponents’ trump,
and if they get the final contract, you have s K-8-3-2
not given away very much information. h D-5-2
Thus, you can very well lower the opening d E-8-7-3
strength demands with three-card minors. c kn-6

Three-Card Openings and Canapé West North East South

In Standard American and Precision, you 1s pass 1N pass
can sometimes steal the opponents’ best 2h pass pass pass
trump suit when opening one in a minor
(one diamond in Precision). This is fine, but The typical contract is North-South making
would it not be even better to steal the two spades. East-West can make two hearts,
opponents’ major suit? but spades are higher. The canapé opening
makes it more difficult for North-South to
The old idea of opening your next longest find their spade suit.
suit, canapé, is nowadays quite unusual, but
it may deserve a better destiny than oblivion. Drawbacks of Canapé
There is, of course, a drawback with
If an opening bid shows 3-4 cards in the suit, opening the next longest suit. Sometimes we
partner can usually decide whether it is a will miss a good fit that everyone else finds
candidate trump suit or not, but the directly after their opening bid. On the other
opponents cannot deduce very much. The hand, we find some 4-4 and 3-5 major fits
bid has a different information value for the faster than the rest of the field.
different sides. A three-card suit has a higher
chance of stealing the opponents’ trump, the One popular treatment is to always open the
weaker the opening bid is. major first, whether it is a 5-4 or 4-5. You
will find more fits, but the drawback is that
In Cottontail, we open a 54xx hand with the you will need another round to tell about
four-card suit, if the four-card suit is a your actual distribution.
major, and with a strong four-card diamond
and a weak five-card major. With a strong Unspecific Overcalls
five-card major and a weak diamond, we In Jannersten and Wohlin, Winning Pairs’
open the major and rebid it. Technique, 1975, (in Swedish), the authors
suggest one level overcalls on three-card
suits, (especially spades), to find a fit, to

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recommend a lead, and sometimes to steal 1h/s 14+ five-card suits
the opponents’ trump. 1N 11-13 balanced
2c/d/h/s 8-13 five-card suits
S K-J-8 h 6-2 d 7-5-4-2 c A-K-J-6
The one level openings are unusually strong,
When the right hand opponent opens with and all responses are based on transfers.
1d, Jannersten and Wohlin recommend a 1s Apart from the latter, this system looks a bit
overcall. like Fantunes, the system of Fulvio Fantoni
and Claudio Nunes. The system is much
An advantage with such an overcall is that it more aggressive than Standard American,
is unspecific. When the opponents bid on, because of the five-card weak two openings.
you have only given away three cards in
spades. That is not so helpful for declarer to By the way, I have assumed that all systems
know. use 2N as a weak opening with 5-5 in the
minors, and natural preempts.
Distributional Hands
I have no new ideas about distributional An alternative is to go for weaker openings,
hands. Zia Mahmood describes so-called but then the one-level openings should be
“Pakistani Preempts” in his book Bridge My less specific, so let us use three-card
Way, 1992. The idea is to use “multi” openings and canapé, (mean opening 3.13):
preempts to show a number of extra
features, but the advantage may be offset by 1c/d/h/s 10+ three-card suits
allowing the opponents the weak, probing 1N 14-16 balanced
double. Most likely, bidding as high as you 2c/d/h/s 0-9 five-card suit
dare and hoping that the opponents will
guess wrongly, is the optimal method. The one level openings show at least three
cards, and are combined with canapé.
Mean Opening Responder does not use transfers, because
For each system below, I have calculated the he is often stronger than opener. Note that
mean opening, where pass is 0.0, 1c is 1.0, we open above 1h on average. This system
1d is 2.0, etc. This can be done by is rather like the Roman Club of Blue Team
multiplying the level of each opening bid fame. Maybe we could call it Aggressive
with its frequency and adding up the values Roman?
for all openings in the system. I wrote a
program to do this in the nineties. Standard My guess is that the aggressive version is
American has a mean opening of 1.48, that better, simply because it is going to gain in
is, right between 1c and 1d. The mean many competitive situations. Competitive
opening gives an idea of how aggressive the will beat constructive.
system is. Of course, it says nothing about
other aspects, such as how precise the Well, how would a strong club system look?
system is, or how much information is gives First the constructive version, (mean
away. opening 3.0):

Some New Bidding Systems 1c 17+ all distributions

If we try to apply the above principles, what 1d 12-16 preparatory
would a bidding system look like? First, let 1h/s 12-16 five-card suits
us look at a natural system with a 1N 14-16 balanced
constructive flair, (mean opening 2.85): 2c 12-16 six-card suit
2d/h/s 6-11 five-card suits
1c 14+ clubs or balanced
1d 14+ four-card suit

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The positive responses to 1c should use on the one level. Thus, we will only approve
transfers, and responder should use transfers the unspecific version. In fact, this system is
after 1c – 1d. Transfer responses should be very much like the Polish system Regres.
used after the 1d/h/s and 2c openings too. Note, though, that the mean opening of
Regres is lower than that of Aggressive
But we can also design a weaker version, Roman and Cottontail Club.
which becomes more aggressive, (mean
opening 3.55): The Delta system described earlier is precise
but passive, with a mean opening of only
1c 15+ all distributions 1.67. It is actually used by responder in
1d/h/s 10-14 three-card suits Regres, after opener’s initial pass. It has one
1N 10-12 balanced clear drawback, namely that most opening
2c 10-14 five-card suit bids are weak (8-12) and show a singleton or
2d/h/s 0-9 five-card suits void. Thus, it often gives away too much
information when the opponents declare.
Transfer responses should be used after 1c,
but not after the other opening bids. The one Conclusions
level openings are combined with canapé The current trend in bidding systems is, if
except when clubs are involved. The 1N anything, to move away from the artificial
opening should be strong when vulnerable, experiments of the seventies and eighties,
for example 15-17. This is actually the and back to more traditional methods. Five-
Cottontail Club, the system I play myself. card majors seem to gain popularity slowly
but inevitably.
This approach can be made ACBL legal in
the following way, (mean opening 3.54): Several ideas I propose in this article, like
canapé and bidding three-card suits, may
1c 15+ all distributions seem old-fashioned or quaint. They are
1d 10-14 three-card suits certainly not becoming more popular. My
1h/s 10-14 four-card suits hope is only to spawn some thinking outside
1N 10-12 balanced of the current trends.
2c 10-14 five-card suit
2d/h/s 0-9 five-card suits The reader may have noticed that this was
not a presentation of one optimally designed
I think that strong club systems are superior system, but at least five. Personally, I
to natural systems in the long run, because believe that either Cottontail or Regres are
the limited opening bids are easier to use in the best systems. The artificiality of Regres
both uncontested and contested auctions. makes it difficult to play with current rules.
Therefore the aggressive version of strong
Finally, let us look at a strong pass system, club probably is best in practice.
(mean opening 2.66):
The ideas presented here are neither mine
pass 13+ all distributions nor new. Rather, I owe a lot to many bridge
1c 8-12 hand with shortness theoreticians and writers, and especially to
1d 0-7 all distributions Slawinski and Ruminski. I only hope I have
1h/s 8-12 3-4 card suit contributed some easy arguments for and
1N 8-12 a five-card major against different design principles for
2c/d 8-12 five-card suits bidding systems. I would also like to thank
2h/s 0-9 five-card suits my partner Anu Uus for experiences gained
in playing the Cottontail Club.
Since the limited opening bids are as weak
as 8-12, it is not good if they show long suits C d h s

10 (10)