The Drury convention is a bridge convention, used to show a game-invitational major suit raise by a passed hand. In its simplest form, a response of 2♣, by a passed hand, to a 1♥ or a 1♠ opening, is artificial and, assuming a system like Standard American where only 5-card majors are opened, shows 3 or 4 card support for opener's suit plus 10 or more support points. Because responder has already passed, this hand is limited to fewer than 12 high card points.
The convention was devised by Canadian player Douglas Drury (1914-1967). Drury lived in Canada most of his life, moving to the USA in the 1950s.
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The Drury convention is valuable because:
Opener rebids 2♦, to show a light opening.
A rebid of 2♦ shows a full opening. While not universally accepted, a bid of 2♥ by opener after opening 1♠ is also a weakish bid showing 5 spades and 4 hearts (or better). With a good hand (say 15 or more points) opener may simply jump to game (4 of the major suit). Other bids tend to be natural and descriptive, in effect a game try. With an excellent hand, opener may be interested in a slam and will bid accordingly.
After opener confirms a full opening hand, the following sequence of rebids is helpful to allow opener to decide if game is possible. The Drury bidder responds to 2♦:
In this variant, the passed hand with 10+ points responds 2♣ to show exactly 3-card support and 2♦ to show 4-card support or better. This may help opener evaluate the probability of a successful game contract.
If the passed hand has 10+ points and a real club suit (or a diamond suit, when playing two-way Drury), this cannot be shown naturally at the 2-level. One possibility is that a jump to 3♣ (or 3♦) shows this hand. An alternative is to use the forcing notrump. A third possibility (and the one recommended when the convention was introduced) is to bid 2♣, then rebid three of the minor. If this last approach is used, opener must be careful about jumping in own suit without extra length.
The above examples are suitable for use with 5-card major systems such as Standard American. Variations are required for use with 4-card major systems such as Acol.