Reverse Bids in Bridge

The rebid that costs partner a level, and therefore has to be worth one.

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What a Reverse Is#

A reverse is a rebid of a second suit that ranks above your first, made at the two level, so that partner cannot give preference back to your first suit without going to the three level.

The suits rank ♣ ♦ ♥ ♠, lowest to highest, and that order is the whole mechanism. Bid clubs and then diamonds and partner has to climb to 3♣ to go back. Bid diamonds and then clubs and 2♦ is available — nothing has been spent.

Both halves of the definition matter, and the second is the one people drop:

That last row catches good players. Spades do outrank diamonds, but the bid costs partner nothing, so it promises nothing — an ordinary rebid that partner is entitled to pass. A hand too strong to have passed out below game has to find a different way to say so.

Why It Promises Extra, and What Shape#

Nothing about a reverse is artificial. It shows exactly the two suits it names. The strength is not an agreement either — it is arithmetic.

When you reverse, partner's cheapest way back to your first suit is the three level. If they have six points and a preference, you have just bought a nine-trick contract on a combined twenty. So the bid has to carry enough that the three level is safe opposite nothing: about 16 points and up, or a shapely hand worth that much.

The shape is a second promise, and it is the one that gets forgotten. The first suit must be the longer one. You bid five diamonds and then four hearts, not the reverse of that — because partner, hearing two suits, will pass or prefer on the assumption that the first is where you live. Five-four is the standard holding; six-four and six-five reverse happily.

With four-four you do not reverse at all. There is no long suit to go back to, and the hand is better described some other way — a no-trump rebid, or a raise if partner has shown something to raise.

Opener's rebid in the bidding chapter puts this beside the other ways of showing 16–18, which is the comparison that matters: a jump rebid says the same thing about strength and a different thing about shape.

Answering One#

A reverse is forcing for one round. Partner may not pass it, however little they hold — which is the point, and also the difficulty, because sometimes they hold very little indeed.

With an ordinary hand the choices are the natural ones:

• Preference back to the first suit at the three level, with two or three cards in it and nothing better to say.
• Raise the second suit with four-card support — you have found an eight-card fit and opener has told you they are strong.
• Bid no trumps with the unbid suits stopped.
• Rebid your own suit with six of them.

The awkward hand is the flat six-count with no fit, forced to the three level opposite a partner who may have only sixteen. Some partnerships agree that 2NT is an artificial way to say "I have nothing, please stop" and let opener choose; others simply take the preference and hope. Either is playable and neither is standard, so it is worth saying out loud which one you are doing.

What a Reverse Costs at Rubber Bridge#

The general advice about reverses is written for duplicate, where a bad three-level contract is one board of many. A rubber is not scored that way, and two things change.

The penalty is the whole downside, and it grows. Reversing takes you to the three level with a partner who may have nothing. Undoubled and not vulnerable that is cheap enough to risk on a good hand. Vulnerable, against opponents who can count, three down doubled is 800 — more than a rubber is worth. The strength requirement is not a formality when the penalties are real.

A part-score changes the target. With 60 on, a two-level contract already completes the game, and the extra room a reverse buys is room you may not need. Showing a second suit is worth less when the contract you want is already available below it — and worth more when you need the game and the only route to it runs through finding a fit. Rubber bridge tactics is the chapter on bidding to the score rather than to the textbook.

How Rase Bids Them#

The robots reverse, and treat a reverse by you as forcing — pass is not in their repertoire opposite one. Tap any call in the bidding panel before you place it and the app says what it means in your system; 💡 gives the engine's own choice and its reason, which for a reverse reads "a reverse into ♥ — 16+ with ♦ longer, forcing."

One choice of theirs is worth knowing, because it is a choice rather than a rule. Where a strong hand could rebid its higher second suit at the one level — 1♣ – 1♥ – 1♠ — the engine will instead bid it at the two level with 16 or more, deliberately spending the room to make the call forcing. The reasoning is that the one-level rebid can be passed, and a minimum opposite a strong hand will pass it, leaving a game or better unbid. Many players would rebid 1♠ there and find another way to show the extras later.

It is the kind of decision how the robots bid exists to be honest about: the engine has a house style, and where that style differs from the book it is written down rather than hidden.