[DavidKok]

MPs, one of the final boards of the session.

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Partner's 1♣ is not-quite-full-Dutch-Doubleton, showing any 12-13 or 17-19 balanced without an outside 5-card suit, any 11-23 unbalanced hand with primary clubs or any 4144 or 4414 in that range. 2♣ clarifies that partner has got an unbalanced minimum with 5(+) clubs (only 5 if 4♦5♣ and too weak to reverse). 3♦ is natural. Do you agree with the bidding thus far, and what is your plan from here?

Edit: I just noticed I mistakenly put both of these in the General Bridge Discussion forum, rather than the Interesting Bridge Hands forum. I'm sorry. Could a moderator move these to the proper spot for me?

[P_Marlowe]

I bid 3S, FSF, asking for a spade stopper.
If he has one, I pass 3NT, if he bypasses 3NT, I guess, he will always bid 4C,
I will set diamonds as trumps and take it from there.

With a spade shortage he will bid 4S, and I will give it a try, otherwise we play 5D.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[mikeh]

Technically, 3S here is not FSF, afaik. We’ve already made an artificial gf so any non game bid is, by definition, forcing.

Nevertheless, given that this is mps, I agree with 3S as a noise. Clearly not a suit and not a cuebid because we haven’t agreed a suit, even implicitly. Therefore, on the adage that game before slam,3S is a probe for 3N.

No way am I looking for slam here unless partner does something surprising. If he bids 3N, I pass. If he bids 4C, I bid 4D and await developments. I can’t imagine any other call over 3S, given that all he knows of my hand is that I have 4+ hearts, maybe 5, and no good spade holding and want to be (at least) game.

[DavidKok]

3♠ is the best bid. With our agreements that would have asked for a spade stopper (similar but not quite identical to either 4SF or 'a noise'). At the table I didn't think of it, and instead decided that the double minor suit fit justified looking for 6 - in diamonds (the 4-4 fit tends to play better since it lets us pitch losers on the long clubs). Our auction continued:

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The diamonds split 3-2 for an easy 12 tricks (in fact, they didn't cash the spade immediately and I pitched them on the long clubs after drawing trimps, but the king of hearts was offside) and a 100% board - most of the field being in 3NT-2 losing the first six spades, with some pairs being in 5♣= and two in 5♦+1.

The slower 3♠ bid would have lead to the same contract (partner bidding 4♣), but much more securely. Unfortunately poor bidding isn't always punished.

[Cyberyeti]

We would start 1♣-1♦ and have no further issues.