Hi, bridge pals.
A while ago I explained how I intend to organize and build out my bridge recipe cookbook. That work has continued.
You can always find links to the updated cookbook in this post.
Recipes for opening 1 of a major
Today I added recipes giving North, as dealer, a hand suitable for opening 1 of a major.
The first four heart recipes each have a single shaper defining a single HCP range.
I then used those four recipes to construct a multi-shaper heart recipe to include all four HCP ranges.
I made similar recipes for spades.
The way to use these recipes is to use the single-shaper recipe if you want a specific HCP range, and to use the multi-shaper recipe if you want any 1-major opener in the 12-21 HCP range.
In these recipes, I limited the opener to no more than six of the trump suit. I did this because I wanted hands without extremely long trump suits. Long suits do happen in real life, and also in instructional deals, so if you use my recipes as a starting point, you can of course make your own choices as to maximum length of the trump suit.
Recipes for opening 1 of a minor
I made a similar set of recipes for opening 1 of a minor suit.
There are more minor recipes than major, because the minors present some challenges having to do with the length of the “other” minor.
There are two types of club opener here: those where you have three clubs and two or three diamonds, and those with four or more clubs and with clubs longer than diamonds (I have not yet developed recipes for opening 1 club with only 2 clubs in hand, mainly because I have not studied that opening).
There are also two types of diamond opener: those where you have three diamonds and two clubs, and those where you have 4+ diamonds with diamonds as long as or longer than clubs.
Recipe developers take note: I have spoken and written before about how the deal generator lets you turn written scenarios into recipes. This experience with the minor suit openers illustrates that you sometimes (often, in fact) will encounter cases where the seemingly simply scenario is too complex for a single recipe. Here, when you get into defining “3-3 in the minors, open clubs; 4-4 in the minors, open diamonds; if clubs are longer than diamonds, open…” and so on, there’s just too much going on for one type of recipe.
Developing these recipes made me realize something that may be old news for you more experienced players and teachers: with a 3-trump club or diamond opener, the hand will never be in the 15-17 or 20-21 HCP ranges. That’s because 1-level minor suit openers with 3 trump cards are always balanced, so I can’t do as I did in the majors and define them as “unbal” in those ranges—it’s going to be balanced for the minors, and a NT opener. That’s why, for the 3-card openers, I only provide recipes in the 12-14 and 18-19 HCP ranges.
Remember: my recipes suit my immediate needs, whether for my own bridge study or for building the first of potentially dozens to illustrate a convention. They are just starting points, not the final word on any bidding scenario. I encourage you to study my recipes but to also come up with your own.
Happy dealing!