From the desk of Bob Jones:

STRONG DRAWBACK

February 1, 2012

Hi All,

I often talk about the overuse of the strong 2 Club opening. Many players use this bid as a way to ‘start the party’ without considering the drawbacks. You start at a high level with an artificial bid. Partner usually makes an artificial response and you are often quite high before you can describe your hand. Worst of all, you invite competition. A 2 Club opening should almost always be one of two hand types: 1) A strong balanced hand, or 2) a big one suiter. Experts will not open 2 Clubs with a 2-suited hand unless the high card strength is over whelming, and never open 2 Clubs with a 3 suited hand.

As the cards lie
bridge hand

The players who opened 2 Clubs with the East hand came to grief. Active competition from North/South caused them to be shut out of spades completely. They had to show clubs first and never got the chance to show the fifth spade.

Players who opened 1 club had a much easier time. North/South bid a lot of red suits, but not as aggressively as they would have over 2 Clubs. East got to bid and re-bid spades. By the time East bid 4 Spades, he was in a great position. If partner passed 4S he was in the top spot. If partner ran back to 5C, East could presume partner had only 2 spades and consider raising himself to 6C. He owned the table.

Don’t be in such a rush to ‘start the party’. 2-suited hands should almost always be opened with one of a suit.

Bob