Opening the bidding with a 4-4-4-1 shape

Many novices find this shape difficult to handle, not without reason. If partner can support one of your four-card suits, you will be a happy bunny. Sadly, most of the time, your partner bids your singleton. It is therefore better to be pessimistic and to plan for this eventuality.

There are three popular ways of deciding on your opening bid with this 4-4-4-1 shape.

The best is probably ' bid the suit which is one below your singleton '.This anticipates that your partner will bid the suit in which you hold a singleton, and will allow the bidding to proceed at a low level.

So----Singleton diamond, open one club

          Singleton heart, open one diamond

          Singleton spade, open one heart

So, what do we do with a singleton club ? Ay, there's the rub. You can simply remember that in this exceptional case, you open one heart. This is the best approach.

Alternately, you can regard the four suits as cyclical and take the spade suit as the one 'below' the clubs. So when you hold a singleton club, by this method you would open one spade.

The totally different alternative approach is to tell yourself that you will always open either one heart or one club. Clearly circumstances will determine which of these will be your choice.

You will have observed that different opening bids stem from the different approaches above. You'll find that it doesn't greatly matter and you won't come to too much harm whichever you use. I greatly prefer the 'one below the singleton' with one heart covering the singleton club.

Since this type of hand is likely to be a misfit, in an ideal world you would be looking for one (or even two) points more than your usual twelve before opening with this shape. However, since we are all optimists at heart, not many of you will take much notice of that piece of advice.

Note that to be thinking of game you should have a fit and 16+ points.