Julian Pottage
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If you are the opening bidder and open 1D, you can plan a 2C rebid. By bidding the higher suit first you give partner the option of playing in either of your suits without raising the level. If you were to bid the clubs first and then the diamonds, partner would have to raise the level to put you back to clubs.
What you have described was popular about 50 years ago. These days the vast majority of people over here play that simple suit bids ignore the double (so are still forcing) and you only redouble when looking to penalise.
When i am playing 5-card majors and a strong NT, I play transfers after the double – so in the case of 1S being doubled 1NT= clubs, 2C = diamonds and 2D = hearts. You cannot play in 1NT but you can show a suit with both weak and strong hands. I do not know anyone who plays transfers after the double in conjunction with Acol, presumably the thinking being that 1NT is too useful a bid to give up when opener might have a strong no-trump hand and only 4 cards in the suit opened.
I should add that on the first auction responder can double 2S to show a decent hand and some defence against hearts. Those not taught otherwise double 2S to show spades but that is not a good meaning for the action.
In the first auction you mentally imagine that North (who has shown hearts and an unspecified minor) has overcalled 2H. So 3H shows a sound spade raise (limit or better), 3S shows a hand that would have raised to 2S. 3C and 3D are both natural and forcing, the same as they would have been after a 2H overcall.
In the second auction, West could bid with a shapely hand or double with a strong hand. West will need to bear in mind that East has shown a weak hand by passing 1S and that suits are less likely than usual to be breaking kindly.
What springs to mind for me when you mention the Truscott convention is a defence to a strong artificial club whereby suit bids show the suit bid and the next higher suit. If you describe some feature of what you have in mind I might be able to help you further.
There is a good reason why redouble should not be an enquiry. You should still use 2NT as an enquiry after the double. With strong hands short in partner’s suit, you can redouble and perhaps collect a penalty later.
The usual rule is that without a good fit you need strong strong values to be looking for game facing a weak two. Here you had 16 HCP and in the context of having only two hearts good support. Some people would open your partner’s 1H but if your agreed range is 6-10 then you cannot say partner is out of range.
3D is indeed forcing and you make a perceptive observation about negative doubles. With a weaker hand and long diamonds, responder doubles first and then if the chance arises (quite likely if opener rebids 2S) bids 3D next time.
the situation would be different if responder had passed previously. Then 3D would not be forcing.
In your follow up question, as nobody had bid either hearts and spades before the 3H bid, 3H shows a heart stopper (or possibly strength in hearts looking for a club slam). It would be different if an opponent had bid hearts. Then 3H would be asking rather than showing.
yes, this is a change of suit response below game by an unpassed hand. If the responding hand is too weak to want 3C to be forcing, responder should pass – opener has another bid.
opener must have had a rebid planned over a 2C response without intervention and can generally make the same bid a level higher. Opener would not bid 3NT with no heart stopper and so might have to bid 3H instead.
For simplicity I play that the replies to 2C and 2D are more or less the same: responses other than the relay show 5-card suit headed by two of the top three honours at the two level (spades is the only suit you can show this way in response to 2D), a 6-card suit headed by two of the top three honours at the the three level.
Reaching a slam with these cards is difficult. You are missing two aces, so for one thing you would need to identify that the void is not facing a ace.
Because the defender with the ace of clubs has a singleton trump, the defenders cannot stop you from ruffing both a heart and a club in dummy. You would have the heart finesse in reserve if the defenders could play a second round of trumps so 6D is a good contract, just rather hard to reach. The news that you scored well for playing in 3NT indicates that few pairs were in 6D.
I answered a very similar question posed by Andrew Scott yesterday; please could you read that? Sorry I am not the right person to ask about videos but perhaps someone else can provide a link.
What I play is that a positive response at the two level requires a 5-card suit with two of the top three honours while a positive response at the three level requires a 6-card suit with two of the top three honours. The vast majority of hands use the relay.
Apart from the final jump to 4S, I do not mind your auction. Responder was rash in assuming that opener had 3-card spade support. A hand with 3-card support could jump to 3S. I would probably have rebid 1NT on the West hand (anyone playing a strong no-trump opening would open 1NT on the West hand) but do not mind the slight stretch to 2D.
Over 2S East should have bid 2NT or 3NT.
A reverse facing fourth suit forcing should be enough for game.
Incidentally it looks like 4S is makeable with just two trumps and the DK to lose.
