One Notrump Forcing

Most of the people you play against are using a Two-Over-One bidding system and they do very well with it, too.  There are two major advantages of the Two-Over-One system compared to Standard bidding, so why not take advantage of them with the Forcing Club System?  The first advantage is the ability to guarantee enough values for game when responder bids at the two level;  the partnership can go slowly without jumps until they reach game.  The second advantage is the ability to stop at the two-level when responder has a hand too weak to bid at the two level.

Big Club bidders can use some of their methods and have the best of both worlds.

One of the foundation bids in Two-Over-One is the one notrump response to an opening major suit bid.  It's forcing, but denies enough for game.

Okay, so what are the subsequent bids when one player opens a major and her partner responds 1NT? 

It depends... Was the opening bid a heart or was it a spade?

Let's take the case of an opening bid of 1 and a 1NT response:

Opener has these rebid options:

    2    Best minor, but it might be a 3-card suit
    2    Again, best minor, but it may be only a 3-card suit
    2    A hand with 5 spades and at least 4 hearts
    2    Shows a 6-card suit
    2NT    Note below

NOTE:
Since the opening bid of 1 promises a maximum of 15 HCP, we cannot rebid 2NT as the Two-Over-One system players use it.  When they rebid 2NT they have 17-19 HCP.  If you want to devise a meaning for this rebid, I would suggest that it is a hand in the range of 14-15 HCP and a solid, running major suit with five sure tricks plus an outside trick.   Responder need provide only two more tricks for a game.
(But this occurs so infrequently you will likely forget it, so it's probably best not to rebid 2NT.)

Okay, we have the rebids.  What about responder's next bid?

  • Responder is not obligated to bid again, so a pass is an acceptable option
  • A new suit at the two level is probably a 5-card suit and is non-forcing
  • A simple raise of opener's major suit might be done with a doubleton
  • Responder can raise opener's second bid suit with at least 5-card support
  • 2NT - A hand with 11-12 HCP and poor support for the opening bid


Is the auction different if the opening bid is 1?

Not for responder, but the opener has one other option since there is always the possibility of holding both 5-card majors and 14-15 HCP, which would be enough to reverse when playing a club system.

    2    Best minor, but it might be a 3-card suit
    2    Again, best minor, but it may be only a 3-card suit
    2    Shows a 6-card suit
    2    A reverse showing two 5-card majors and 14-15 HCP
    2NT    See the note above



A forcing notrump response doesn't have much advantage over standard methods unless you can also use two-over-one bids as forcing to game.  One small adjustment needs to be made, though.  Since your partner might have opened with only 11 HCP, You need at least 13 points to bid at the two level.


Here's modification that I really like when my partner will play 1NT as a forcing response...   Generally, when one partner opens a major and the other simply raises the suit it shows about 6-10 HCP.  Suppose you agree to first respond 1NT (forcing) and then raise the major suit bid when you have that hand.

Now, with that agreement in place, you can use an immediate raise as a game forcing bid and as a Control Asking Bid.  Sort of an Inverted Major Suit Raise.


Example:
Consider these two hands where West opens 1

              West                                             East
                   Q 7                                           A K 4
                   A Q 8 5 3                                           K J 9 4
                    10 9 5                                           A K J 6 3
                   K 6 4                                    3

East responds 2 and West alerts - "Game force and asks about controls."
Since West has three controls, the ace of hearts and the king of clubs, West rebids the third step... 3      and that's enough for East to bid a small slam.

If you change the K to the ace, West would show four controls by bidding 3 and then it's possible to bid the grand slam!




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