What to Respond?

Here's a hand that came up the other day.

You hold this hand:
♠A8
♥J87
♦A9754
♣AT2

You are Dealer. What will you do?

Most people managed to open 1♦ which is a good opening bid.

Now Partner responds 2♣. You are NOT playing 2/1 Game Forcing. Just Standard American. What is your bid? What does that show?

There are a few potential responses to your Partner's 2♣ bid. Let's go over them.

You can bid 2NT. This shows a minimum hand and is one of two bids that Partner is allowed to Pass. You are fine with that. The one thing this tends to show is that you have values in the other suits -- in this case the majors. You don't really have much in the ♥ suit. However sometimes you are stuck. Let's see what other bids you have available to you.

You can rebid 2♦. This does NOT put a game force on the auction which is good since you do not have the values to do so. This would deny having a balanced hand with the other suits stopped for NT or shows an unbalanced hand. This is also a forcing bid so Partner MUST bid again. This isn't a bad bid but it's a pretty ratty suit to rebid even though bidding 2♦ here doesn't guarantee a good suit. Any other options?

3♣ is about the only other one. Raise Partner's suit. This is a non-forcing bid (which is fine) and shows only three card support. (Which is strange because Partner only guarantees four in this suit but we'll get back to that.) I like this response best. If NT is the right place to play then Partner will bid again and that ♦ suit isn't the greatest suit to rebid -- especially when you can support Partner's suit.

Let's get back to that question -- WHY am I allowed to support Partner with only three trump?

Answer: Most of the time Partner will have a longer suit. At least 5 or 6 of them.
OR
Partner bid ♣ never intending to play in them. They are only stalling to see what your hand is.

Why is that?
Well, what hand would Partner bid 2♣ on with only four of them?

First of all they also CAN'T have four ♥ or four ♠. With any four card major and four ♣ they would respond 1 of the major to your opening bid of 1♦.

Secondly, if they are balanced they would bid some number of NT depending on how many points they have.

It's almost impossible to construct a hand where Partner has only four ♣ in this auction. If they are unbalanced they have at least five ♣ and you have your eight card fit.

They also could be unbalanced but have ♦. In that case they will NOT Pass 3♣. Remember Partner is ALLOWED to Pass 3♣ but not FORCED to Pass 3♣. There's a BIG difference.

Let's say Partner has four ♣ and is balanced but couldn't bid 1NT, 2NT or 3NT because they had too many points. Remember each of those NT bids has a certain point count range associated with it. These ranges differ depending on the Partnership.

But say Partner has this hand:
♠KQ6
♥AK5
♦K32
♣KQ76

Once you open the bidding 1♦ what does Partner bid? They probably want to get to a small slam but they don't want to just bid that right away because that might rule out a grand slam. So they would respond 2♣. Once you raise to 3♣ they know you are minimum for your opener and can safely rule out the grand. But here they are going to end up in 6NT -- not 6♣. They know you might only have three of them so you might not have a fit plus they are balanced and NT earns more points.

So when Partner bids a new suit at the 2 level you are allowed to raise with only three card support. If you only raise 1 level Partner is allowed to Pass. Remember that Partner MUST have at least 10 HCP to bid a new suit at the 2 level so if you have more than a minimum opener do NOT make a bid Partner can Pass. Make forcing bids until you get to game.