The entire auction was somewhat ill-judged.
I agree, btw, that East should have shown the spade Q.... Jxxxx in support of a known 5+ suit opposite whould show the Q, since partner may be reluctant to bid a contract that requires no trump losers from AKxxx opposite xxxx.
But that seems unlikely to affect the result, and may well have confused West, who (from the rest of the auction) was clearly inexperienced.
My comments:
1. It is in my view a big mistake to use 2N as a forcing raise promising 3+ trump. Whenever responder has only 3 trump, there will always exist a significant possibility that another suit will be a more effective trump suit. Not all the time, of course, but frequently. And it is usually difficult, even for experienced pairs, to get out of the major suit once it is established. This is especially true for pairs who generally embark upon cue-bidding over the 2N.
2. More fundamentally, it was a beginner's mistake (unless one belongs to the Steve Robinson school) to open 1
♠. With 5=6 in the blacks, west was going to have profound trouble describing his club length. Imagine east were 2=3 or 1=3 in the blacks... the 6=3 club fit might produce a grand slam but be unfindable after 1
♠.
And west will NEVER be unable to find a spade fit if he opens 1
♣.
Frankly, I am not exactly sure how the auction would have gone after 1
♣ but I think that the partnership would get to slam somehow.
3. I also strongly endorse Han's point about West having to commit to slam once he gets a response to keycard that tells him that only one keycard is missing. The fact that he felt unable to do so speaks volumes about why he shouldn't be using keycard.
4. East has NO rights over 5
♠. It is a huge breach of partnership discipline to take another call.
5. As to whether East could or should risk keycard over 4
♦, I can't answer that because the auction to that point was so unusual that I don't know what East could reasonably infer by then. In particular, the 3
♠ rebid by opener mystifies me. He has a side 6 card suit. He has a void. He has the A of the other suit. He has a huge playing hand, altho its strength is largely dependent on partner's club holding. I fail to see how he communicated any of this via 3
♠.
I don't want to sound too critical. The care and feeding of freakish hands is a difficult topic and I know that many B/I players are either taught or 'learn' to bid 5 card majors almost above all others. Furthermore, the long, subtle auctions that experts sometimes have depend upon a degree of partnership trust, as well as knowledge, that simply can't exist in a B/I partnership, even if it is a practiced one.
So I don't want to seem to be discouraging the OP or his partner. However, I think that anyone sufficiently interested in learning that he or she posts here (and bravo for doing so) is probably the type of player who will be able to make great strides in the game if given some constructive criticism... and it is the bidding I am criticizing, not the players.
While there are occasions on which experts will (to varying degrees) open a 5 suit while holding a 6 card side suit, that is almost never the case with 6 clubs and 5 spades, because that holding can ALWAYS handle a rebid. Contract to 5=6 in the reds, where opener has to be afraid of a 1
♠ or 1N response to 1
♦, and now 2
♥ is a reverse. Many very good players will open 1
♥ with modest hands with this pattern.
I hope all of this makes sense and is of use
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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