SImple raise

Responses to Major Suit Openings

A Simple Raise to Two of the Suit

Roughly 6 - 10 Dummy Points. A simple raise of one to two requires any three or more trump and ? to 10 points. Points may include distribution values, but only if sufficient trump are included so that dummy can ruff declarer's losers. We assign no arbitrary value to singletons, doubletons, etc. That's a hand evaluation question, to be considered in context of the bidding.

A simple raise to two has significant preemptive value in competition. Values can be shaded with favorable vulnerability because opener promises a sound opening bid, as described above.

Over Interference. With an intervening overcall or takeout we make the same raise we would have made without any interference. In fact, we shade our hands a bit to make a raise because it's so important for partner to know about three+ trumps in support. We don't treat it as an old-fashioned "free-bid", which required 10+ 'points'.

If you pass holding three+ trumps, you put opener in a tough position to compete. Because of this urge to raise, opener must remember that partner may be weak - 4 or 5 HCP instead of 6+.

We have numerous ways we show raises of 9+ HCP, primarily the Limit Raise.