[Phil]

---

[gszes]

What was the 3s bid? Presumably partner already knows we do not have
3 card support for spades and they did not bid 3s so their suit cannot be
overly great and having to ruff dia with the AK of trumps opposite a not so
good spade suit is a recipe for disaster. P is looking for a dia stop and we
do not have one but we do have a singleton so this is a wonderful time to
bid 4d in case p has slam in mind.

[kfay]

I'm going to have trouble making 5♣ too from what I can see.

Did I go down in 4♠ or something?

[billw55]

kfay, on 2012-October-24, 14:41, said:

I'm going to have trouble making 5♣ too from what I can see.

Did I go down in 4♠ or something?

Going down in 5♣ requires the parlay of clubs not breaking, spades not breaking, long clubs and short spades in same hand, plus a heart lead or switch. I'd say chances are pretty good. 4♠ seems easier to go off.

Auction seems fine until 4♠, I see no reason for north not to bid 4♣ on the way.

[Fluffy]

I'd bid the same

[rogerclee]

IMO bidding 3C will result in us getting to 3N down too often. Yes it is easy to construct many weak hands where we can make 5C but look at the actual hand and it will become obvious that it is not so easy to get to 5C when we belong there instead of 3N, unless south takes the (IMO antipercentage) view of always pulling 3N to 4C.

[rhm]

I would blame North.

A sensible sequence:

1♣-(1♦)-1♠
3♣-3♥
3♠-4♣
5♣

South 3♣ bid was aggressive, which is okay. But he should know that he was bidding on distribution not on HCP strength.
I would bid 3♥ (not 3♦) as North. (South has denied 4♥s by bidding 3♣, 3♥ shows a stopper or (unlikely) 5 hearts)
North should bid 4♣ at his third term since his spades are weak and he can not be sure how good South spade support is.

South final pass over 4♠ is doubtful, since 4♠ looks very awkward on diamond forces.
However, if North has

♠QJTxx
♥QJx
♦xxx
♣Ax

4♠ would be the only reasonable game.

Rainer Herrmann

[rmnka447]

The ♣ hand is based solely on the extraordinary ♣ suit, so why not just tell partner what you hold with a 4 ♣ bid.

3 ♦ either shows just some general strength without another good bid, asks about a ♦ control for NT or shows some ♦ control. There's no annotation that it's the latter two, so I'm assuming it's the former. As such, there's no reason to assume responder has anymore than 4 ♠s.

I also think 3 ♥ showing a stopper stands out as responder's rebid because responder's spades are so poor. Opener can still bid 3 ♠ with 3 decent ones, so you won't lose a possible spade game.

With the hand Rainier quoted, you'd like to be able to bid 3 sp-arts and show both the heart stopper and nice 5 card spade holding. You can't do that, so I'd probably lean toward bidding 3 ♠ hoping opener might still be able to find a 3 NT bid with a ♦ stopper and no spade fit.