Bye Bye, Bergen

Author

Paulo Brum

Since moving to the USA, I have played less bridge than I am used to. But I have played enough to note that Bergen raises are very popular.

They are so popular that I will not have to explain what they are to develop this article. A good source for it is found in Larry Cohen's bridge website, for those who are interested. (If you go there, by the way, you'll see that he also advocates not using Bergen raises, raising basically the same point I am discussing in this longer article). It is important to understand, nevertheless, the motivation behind Bergen raises, so as to better criticize them, and to suggest better alternatives.

Bergen raises were created to exploit to the greatest extent the Law of Total Tricks. This concept deserves articles and books (and they have been written), but for our purposes, and in the realm of major suit raises, the salient point is that with nine trumps you have 3-level safety. 

If we want to unpack this sentence, its meaning is that if you have a nine-card fit, you will either make your contract or, if you go down, the odds are that your opponents could make a contract of their own. In those books I mentioned, this area of bidding -- competition at the 3-level for the partscore -- is thoroughly explored. And the idea behind Bergen raises is that, if you are aware of your nine-card fit, you should take up as much space as possible, and bid directly at the 3-level (your safety level). This is why the bids of 3 Clubs and 3 Diamonds become dedicated for major suit raises. 

So far so good. But any convention must be analyzed in reference to the whole picture, namely, what are you giving up to play it? And what are the extra chances you are offering to the opponents by playing it? These questions are often neglected, with the players focusing only on the gains of the convention.

The major drawback of Bergen raises is that they are pretty much incompatible with 2/1 GF. Yes, you heard me. One of the most popular systems in America right now includes both 2/1 GF and Bergen raises -- and this leaves an enormous, unsolvable gap in your system. When you use the bids of 3 Clubs and 3 Diamonds to support partner, you no longer have them available in their natural sense. This means that any hand in which the primary suit is clubs (or diamonds) cannot use any other route than bidding its suit at the 2-level, or 1NT. But the 2-level new suit is game forcing! And so we have a huge range of club (and diamond) hands that are shoveled into the forcing 1NT response. (If you play it as semi-forcing, meaning that your partner can pass with a balanced minimum, your problem becomes even worse).

Look at the 3 hands below.

You want to bid clubs with these 3 hands. Playing 2/1 and Bergen, if you partner opened 1 Spade, you have to bid 2 Clubs (game forcing) with the 3rd, and the other 2 hands have to start with 1NT. How can you distinguish between them when partner rebids 2 Spades? Short answer is, you can't. 

One solution that allows you to keep your Bergen raises is to play that the 2/1 response is not always game forcing -- that if you rebid your suit, you have invitational values. Then you create some problem for you with the 3rd hand (you'll have to rebid unnaturally in your 2nd turn, probably 2NT. Lucky that I gave you stoppers. You might be missing them).

As you see, this is the "short blanket" problem -- you have 3 hands but only 2 bids. The easy solution is to find a 3rd bid for the 3rd hand. One way to do this is by saying bye bye to Bergen and playing the jump to 3 of a minor as invitational. Now you can bid 1NT with the 1st hand, 3 Clubs with the second hand, and 2 Clubs (GF) with the 3rd hand, planning to rebid your clubs (particularly if you lack stoppers in a red suit). 

So, what do we do with those 4-card raises in the 6-11 range, if you give up Bergen? After all, the principle of "heading to the 3-level with 4 card support" is still sound. 

The easiest and most natural way to do it is to bid 3 of a major as a mixed raise, something like 7-9 with 4 trumps. You are giving up the more preemptive version (4-6) that is standard Bergen -- with this hand you raise at the 2-level. It is not ideal. Bergen does have some advantages, after all. It would be better to jump to the 3-level if you could do it using all of your legal bids. Don't lose heart, though -- if your opponent interferes (with a double or an overcall) before you bid, your jump reverts to preemptive (something like 4-7, with an eye on the vulnerability), 

With 10-11 and 4 trumps, I recommend you jump to 2NT. But isn't this Jacoby, a game-forcing raise? Sure, but it is quite easy to adapt it to include the 10-11 hands. Jacoby then becomes a hand in the range 10-16. The sequences I will present here not only take care of the 10-11 hands, but they also are a major improvement over "standard Jacoby", which reveals too much of opener's hand when this is not necessary.

As any new convention, it takes some study and effort to master it, but here it goes.

After 1 Major - 2NT (10-16):

1. With a minimum balanced hand, one that does not want to bid game over a 10-11 hand, you rebid 3 of your major. This is your weakest bid. It is so weak that responder will basically never search for anything other than a game (or pass if he is 10-11). Jacoby is best used as a limited bid by responder, with a defined ceiling, but if you judge it better to bid 2NT with some superstrong hand (you are allowed to use your judgment, after all), one that might make slam even if your partner has 11-12 and a balanced hand, you can now bid a shortness  (or 3NT, without a shortness), asking for partner's reaction to that shortness. This must be a really powerful hand, to be looking for slam opposite the weakest opening hand.
2. With a hand that wants to bid a game but is not really interested in slam, unless responder is quite strong (imagine something like the 13-16 range), you bid 3 Clubs. Responder now bids game with 10-14 (Note how you are concealing your hand very well from the opponents), bids 3 Diamonds to ask for shortness when he is in the 15-16 range, shows a shortness of his own (by bidding it), bids 3NT to depict slam interest but no shortness, or bids 3 of the major with great trumps (at least HHxx, or Hxxxx) and slam interest.
3. With a hand that is interested in slam if partner has a typical Jacoby (12-16) hand -- something like 16-19, if you want a point range -- you bid 3 Diamonds.  Responder will cooperate unless he has the 10-11 hand, upon which he will bid game. (You can reopen if you are extremely strong and judge that your hand warrants the risk of reaching the five level to better explore slam chances). Note that responder is also allowed to "pretend he has 12+" if his 10-11 hand is particularly slamworthy. He cooperates by bidding 3 of the major to ask for opener's shortness, or bidding a shortness of his own, etc. (Same scheme of responses as in item 2, above, minus the "great trumps" response).
4. 3 of the other major depicts an unknown void. You should use this response whenever you have a void, regardless of your strength. Hands with voids and great fits can make slam on very slender values. Responder will bid game with 10-11, or bid the next step to ask for your void. You show it naturally; if the opening bid was 1 Heart, 3 Spades showed the void, 3NT asked, and 4 Hearts is a void in spades.(If you are so strong that you are willing to go to the five level even if responder has an unsuitable hand, you can bid 4 Spades). Over a 1 Spade opening you have more room, since 3 Hearts showed the void, and 3 Spades asked. You can now bid your void naturally. 3NT becomes an idle bid, don't use it unless create a good meaning for it (I would suggest "weak trumps", as well as your void -- partner can now ask again for the void if he has nice trumps), and discuss it with your partner.
5. 3NT is a strong hand (17+), interested in slam, but without any shortness, typically 6322. (With 5332 and 5422 you can bid 3 Diamonds). The idea here is to show the extra trump. 
6. 4m (anything) is a concentrated 5-5 hand. The kind of hand that is interested only in Aces and honors in both suits. As for its strength, you are showing something like 4/5 honors among the 8 relevant honors (AKQ in your suits and side Aces). So a typical hand would be AKxxx xx x KQJxx. This makes a slam opposite as little as Qxxx Axxx xxx Ax; as you see, responder's reaction should depend on how many relevant honors he has. With 3 or more, he should cooperate by cuebidding, even risking the 5 level if necessary. With less, he should bid game. Good judgment is still required, though -- shortness in partner's long suit can be useful if you also have long trumps or a source of tricks of your own. Picture that concentrated 5-5 hand (without a void! This is important to help your judgment) and you will do fine. 
7. Game in our suit is a weak hand, but with 6 cards in our suit. In high cards, it is about as strong as the signoff in 3 of our suit, but the extra card warrants the game bid. You can also improvise it with other kinds of extreme distribution (e.g. a 55 very weak hand, subminimum opener, that wants to bid game when it finds the 9-card fit), as long as you are aware of the risks you are running.

This is merely one of many available solutions to the question "if not Bergen, what?" Agreeing that 2/1 bids can be of (only) invitational strength if you rebid your suit is also a good way out of this problem (which will leave you maneuvering a bit unnaturally if you have a game-forcing one-suiter -- but strong hands can often sort themselves out).

More high-tech approaches would use a 2 Clubs game-forcing relay to bid some of these hands with good support; some top partnerships bid 2NT as a limited raise (7-11 or such), keeping the preemptive (4-6) raise, and use a slower path with any game forcing raise. If there is a demand for a description of that alternative, I will write another article about it. But it is very much more complicated. For most partnerships who are looking for a consistent 2/1 system, my recommendation is:

• Use jumps to the 3-level in new suits as invitational, natural, long in that suit. This has the added advantage of making life tougher for the opponents, who cannot come in so easily after this bid.
• Use 2NT as a limit-plus 4-card raise (i.e., not always game forcing).
• Say bye, bye to Bergen.