7.1 Tactics for Third Seat Bidding

After two hands have passed, the person third to bid has, by deduction, some information about his left-hand opponent’s cards even though that player has not bid.

Suppose you hold the first hand shown below. You have 0 HCP, and the two passed hands have less than 13 HCP each. Since there are 40 HCP in the deck, your LHO has at least 16 HCP. Most of the time he will have much more, since we often open hands with less than 12 HCP when we have good distribution, for example when our hand is suitable for a weak-two bid or higher level preempt.

This is an extreme example, and while most “experts” would do something with this hand, I’m certainly not going to insist that it is necessary to do so. However, if you gave me the second hand, it would not cross my mind for more than a second to pass. Often enough for it to be helpful, LHO has a strong balanced hand of 20 HCP or more. He isn’t going to be able to do anything sensible except bid 3NT. His partner won’t know if he’s being optimistic with 16 HCP, or resigned with 25! Yes, sometimes I’ll get doubled and go for a large minus score, but this is a game of frequency. I can afford an occasional big loss when there is the possibility of a big win from the gamble.

So, my first piece of tactical advice for third seat openers is: If in doubt, preempt!

♠	xxxxx
♥	xxx
♦	xxx
♣	xx

♠	x
♥	xxx
♦	xx
♣	Jxxxxxx

Reasons for Light Action in Third Seat

To try to make a part-score when you have control of the majors. When you have the spade suit, you have a huge advantage on competitive hands since yours is the highest ranking suit. No one else can try for a contract unless they are prepared to contract for one more trick than you are. Hence the “rule of 15”, which suggests that you open whenever your points and spades add up to 15 or more.
To direct the defense. If you have a strong holding in one suit, you will want to help partner get off to the best lead for your side.

Opening with 4-Card Majors in Third Seat

Suppose you hold:

♠	AQJx
♥	xx
♦	Jxxx
♣	Kxx

Well, this hand meets our “rule of 15”, so we are going to open the bidding. In first or second seat, we’d open 1♦ because our major suit openings show 5 cards. However, here we want a spade lead if we end up defending, so it is more important to bid our best suit.

There’s another reason as well. When you open this hand 1♠, your LHO needs a better hand and suit to introduce hearts at the two-level than she would to overcall 1♥ over 1♦.

Responding to Third Seat Openings

Minor Suit Openings

Nothing changes here. Partner must be prepared to live with whatever you bid or else will have full values for his opener. Inverted Minor raises are still on, since a limit raise is possible for a passed hand, and distribution could give you a hand worth more than that.

Major Suit Openings

The responses to Major suit openings must change. Our two-level responses are game forces by unpassed hands. We’ve already denied having that good a hand when we passed in first seat. As well, we no longer can afford to jump to the three-level based on our nine card fit, since partner might well open a four-card suit.

There’s no need to change the range for the 1NT response. It is still the same 5-12 HCP it would be if you were not a passed hand. Opener is expected to bid again with any unbalanced hand, or any normal opener. However, if you have the example that we opened 1♠ just a few minutes ago:

♠	AQJx
♥	xx
♦	Jxxx
♣	Kxx

you should pass. In fact, any time you have a four card suit for your major suit opener, you should pass 1NT. Without the five-card suit, your hand is already worth a trick less than partner is entitled to expect.

Therefore, when I pass 1NT after opening 1M in third-seat, I “alert” the opponents that this shows a light opener, or a 4-card major suit.

However, there’s one hand we don’t want to have for 1NT when partner has a light opener with a 5-3-3-2 hand. The one with 10-12 points and 3-card support. We really want and need to play this hand in 2♠ to have our best chance to make a small plus score.

	Reverse Drury

Natural Two-Level Responses to Third Seat Openers

Every time we have 10+ points and 3+ support for partner’s third-seat Major suit opener, we respond 2♣. This is an artificial bid, which must be alerted.

West	North	East	South
	Pass	Pass	1♠
Pass	?

2♦ and 2♥ responses should show a hand with less than 3 spades (every time you have 3 spades you will bid 2♠ or 2♣ in response to the third-seat opener). They should also have at least a five-card suit, and might be as light as 8 HCP if the hand will play better in that suit than in notrump. A light or 4-card major opener is expected to pass the two-level response, otherwise just bid as normally.