pilowsky, on 2023-February-01, 03:12, said:
If your partner had bid 1♠, how would that affect the bidding and final contract?
In standard bidding, responding 1S would be a very bad idea. It is normal to respond 2C. When one is able to force to game, bid the longer suit first.
I didn’t ask my partner why he rebid 3C…he could plausibly have bid 3S over my 2N but I think 3C was better….I expect he thought that my 2N denied a 4 card major. That depends on style, but personally I would indeed not bid 2N if I had a major.
But if he had responded 1S, I would have a problem. My hand is too strong for 3D. I can’t bid notrump with a stiff small club. I can’t make a strong raise of spades with only Axx.
Fortunately there is a time-honoured solution, imperfect though it is. I’d reverse into 2H. That gets the strength of my hand across, at the cost of distorting my shape
It’s reasonably safe…partner won’t raise hearts without 4 of them and,if he does that, I know he has five or more spades…with 4=4 majors, he bids 1H rather than 1S.
As it is, over my reverse he is a little stuck himself. He bids, I assume, 3C, natural and strong enough to force to game….unfortunately not showing anything remotely like what he holds. A decent 8 count is enough to force to game opposite a reverse
Now opener is a bit stuck again….this is a consequence of the 1S response rather than describing his hand by responding 2C. Look at the difference.
2C then 3C shows 13+ hcp (he shouldn’t game force with much less unless he has a diamond fit which bidding 3C over 2N denies) and six or more clubs.
2C made this hand easy to bid….I’m not sure how, in an unpracticed partnership with no discussion, grand could be reached with confidence but small was never going to be missed.
After 1D 1S 2H 3C opener has to fess up to the spades, in case responder has 5 (personally, if I bid 3C, I’d be denying 5+ spades unless I had a very unusual hand but I’d not assume partner knew that).
I think the auction should go something like 1D 1S 2H 3C 3S and now responder is stuck. 4N might sound like and maybe should be keycard for spades so he can’t do that. So what else can he do?
I’m not going to speculate further. I hope that you can see how tortuous the auction has become: all because of a very bad choice of 1S. Seriously, it’s extremely important to learn that with game force values, bid your suits, when they are of unequal length, in the order of the longer first
This is truly a fundamental part of learning to bid cooperatively.
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari