Truscott

When to use Truscott

Truscott is normally used as a defence to Precision 1§ openers, or similar. However, with partnership agreement, Truscott can (and probably should) be used over any strong artificial opener, including Acol 2§, Benj 2¨ etc. although you would need to be rather stronger to overcall an Acol 2§ style opener.

The only rules are that the opponent’s opening bid must be strong (16+) and artificial (conveys no information about distribution). The rest of this discussion assumes the opponents open Precision 1§.

Truscott is used immediately over the opening bid, or after a strong opener on your left, pass from partner, and an artificial negative response (1¨ in Precision) on your right.

As soon as either opponent shows a genuine suit, or bids No Trumps, Truscott is off the menu.

Why a specific defence?

Normal defensive methods, like takeout doubles, Michaels etc. just don’t work when the opposition haven’t shown any suits. For example, what does (1§)-double mean? To expect the doubler to have all four suits is unreasonable.

Truscott allows you to show any single or two suited combination with a single bid. The ability to show two specific suits in a single bid greatly increases the chances of finding a fit. This means you can afford to compete with slightly weaker hands without compromising safety.

Purpose

Truscott is purely defensive. The objectives are to prevent the opposition from finding their best final contract and/or to suggest a safe sacrifice for our side.

All Truscott bids show weak overcall strength, around 8 losers. Truscott does not provide any mechanism to show a strong hand. There are ways to overcome this. Crowhurst suggests a strong hand should pass initially and then bid on the second round. However, in around 20 years of playing Truscott I have never yet felt the need for a strength showing bid over 1§. If one opponent has 16+, that only leaves 24, at most, for our side. The chances of a game our way must be slim.

Truscott provides bids for all two-suited and single suited hands. There is no bid to show a three suited hand. With 5-4-4-0 you could show your best two suits, but with 4-4-4-1 it’s probably safer to pass.

Two Suited Hands.

Truscott two suited overcalls show at least a 5/4 distribution. There are just six possible combinations of two suits. If we assume the order of the suits to be “circular”, in four out of the six cases the suits will be touching. The figure on the right shows the only two possible combinations of non touching suits:

Truscott utilises all the available non-jump bids to show two suited hands. Touching suits are shown by bidding the lower ranking suit (with ª and §, ª is the “lower ranking”). For example, (1§)-2§ would show clubs and diamonds. (1§)-pass-(1¨)-1ª would show spades and clubs, etc.

With non touching suits including the “suit” just bid on your right, double. With non touching suits which don’t include the suit bid on your right, bid NT (you may like to think of the NT bid as showing the suits “either side” of the suit just bid on your right). Eg. (1§)-1NT would show diamonds and hearts as would (1§)-pass-(1¨)-double.

Single Suited Hands

A single suited hand is shown with a jump overcall. You should normally have a 6 card suit. Note that the jump overcall shows neither more nor less strength than the simple overcall. It just shows a different hand shape.

With a 7 card suit you can do a normal pre-emptive overcall by jumping to the three level. As noted earlier, it is wasteful to reserve jump overcalls to show strength over a 16+ point hand. No matter what strength your jump overcalls would be over a natural opener, over a Precision 1§ a jump overcall should always be treated as weak.

Responses

Responses to partner’s Truscott are completely natural. The 1NT and double are clearly forcing, but all other Truscott suit bids can be passed. The normal response is to raise partner’s suit, or whichever suit you prefer if partner showed two suits, to the maximum possible level. Partner’s suit bid can be passed if you think we are already as high as we dare be (and you don’t have a preference for his other suit).

You should take the Truscott bidder for 8 losers but it might even be worth stretching by a loser, with a good fit, to try to disrupt the opponents.

Note that it is highly unlikely partner has anything useful outside of the suit(s) he has specifically shown. You bid any other suit at your peril. If you end up going off because partner has a void then it’s your fault!

Summary:

Complete reference table of Truscott bids over Precision club

All double jumps (eg. 1§-3©) preemptive.

Note that jump bids in NT, such as (1§)-2NT are not used in Truscott. If you still feel really nervous about the lack of a strength showing bid, a jump in NT could be used for that purpose.