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A limit raise is a fit response to an opening of one of a suit. A jump raise of opener's suit typically shows invitational values (10-12 points). Opener should bid game in a major suit with 15 points and pass otherwise.

Limit raises were developed because the original natural system for responding to suit openings made it very difficult to describe a hand with invitational values (the only possible response allowed was 1/1 and 2/1 responses), and such hands are far too common for that level of awkwardness.

Treatment[]

The convention states that a jump raise of a 1-level suit opening shows 10-12 points with a fit, and is invitational to game if the suit is a major. This is actually completely natural, as the responder is making a limit bid by bidding the highest contract he thinks the partnership can make given the information received from the opener.

Opener's Rebids[]

  • With 13-14 points, pass
  • With 15+ points, bid game over a major suit raise
  • With interesting distribution and a maximum, bid something else to try for slam

Limit raises over minor suit openings[]

After a minor suit opening, it is very common to have enough strength for 3NT, but not enough for 5 of the minor. Thus, it is better that a strong responding hand with a minor suit fit not require so much bidding space, leaving room to explore the possibility of notrump. So many partnerships do not use limit raises for minor suits, favoring instead Inverted minor raises. Bridge World Standard advocates inverted minor raises, while Standard American Yellow Card uses limit minor raises.

Advantages[]

  • Invitational hands come more often than game-forcing hands, therefore, it is much more useful to assign a bid to this meaning.

Disadvantages[]

  • To show a game forcing raise, an artificial bid (most commonly 2NT or 3NT) is needed.

External links[]

Raises

Single raise - Jump raise
Competitive raise - Preemptive raise - Constructive raise - Limit raise - Forcing raise
Inverted minor raise - Bergen raise - Splinter - Jacoby 2NT - Truscott 2NT (Jordan 2NT)
Quantitative slam invite

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