Julian Pottage
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If you start with a transfer, you are not going to know what to do next. Bernard (and standard Acol) plays 1NT-3S as a natural slam try, so that would be the usual way to proceed.
If you have the king-queen but not the jack or ten, you are looking for some help from partner. If you lead high, you will block the suit if partner has A-x or J-x. If partner has only low cards, declarer will normally have a double stopper anyway.
If you pass, the bidding is quite likely to go 1S on your left and a raise to 2S on your right. I am with you in overcalling 1NT.
Are you asking about a natural strong two? So few people play them these days that one needs to ask.
What you say sounds basically sensible. You do not need 13 HCP for a bid of the opposing suit when you have 3-card support. 10 points is the more usual minimum and you might do it with 9 if you had two aces and some other positive features.
You do not bid 1NT with a fit for partner’s major, so the point count for bidding 1NT and the principle of bidding to the level of the fit are not in conflict. I would not have as many as 13 HCP and bid 1NT, 9-12 is a more typical range.
I play 2NT as a 4-card a sound raise and therefore play 3NT as natural bids- one wants to have some natural bids!
If you do not play 2NT as a sound 4-card raise, I would recommend playing a jump cue bid as a sound 4-card raise.
North could have taken the auction more slowly, bidding 2S over 2D. South will not be raising spades, though there is a danger of catching a heart preference. Indeed South would bid 3H over 2S. North can cue bid 3S over 3H and when South cue bids 4D, bypassing clubs, its is clear there are two fast club losers. You finish in 4H, which is 4-3 fit but is actually the best contract.
At the other tables presumably North bashed 3NT over 2D. That could have gone down if you move a couple of clubs across from West to East.
in a trump contract, when there is a singleton in dummy, it is indeed usual to play suit-preference – but Bernard might not have had that agreement with this particular North. On this occasion North can see the threat of dummy’s diamonds and may well find the club switch with or without a signal.
If you do not play 2NT as a sound 4-card raise then you make an unassuming cue bid. With 11 HCP West could hardly be better as a passed hand and the jump to raise to 3H is misleading.
I play the 2D cue bid as precisely 3-card support (or sometimes a very strong hand that cannot risk a non-forcing change-of-suit bid but as West passed in second seat the latter is impossible).
With one partner I play the jump to 3D as a mixed raise, stronger than a pre-emptive raise but weaker than a strong raise; with another I play the jump cue bid as showing a shortage. If you wish to retain 2NT as natural, I would recommend playing the jump cue bid as a sound 4-card raise. As a passed hand, West cannot have the values to bid 2NT naturally, so it is a bit of waste playing 2NT as natural.
I only referred to the losing trick count because the question mentioned it. This would not be the main valuation method when overcalling – indeed some people do not use the LTC at all but simply add the right number of points for short suits.
My auction is very different to the actual one. With 4-4 in the majors it is normal to open 1H rather 1S, so South opens 1H. Playing weak jump overcalls I would then bid 3C on the West hand rather than 2C (I would be bidding 4C non-vulnerable but both sides are vulnerable). West’s overcall has deprived North the chance to make a splinter bid. So North bids 4C, which shows a good raise to 4H without promising a club control. South cannot ask for key cards because there might be two fast club losers and so cue bids 4D. North signs off in 4H but South is worth one more effort, a 4S cue bid. Lacking a club control North signs off again in 5H and there matters rest. If North bid 4H rather than 4C, the auction would end there.
Before I comment on the lead, I must first comment on the bidding. The takeout double relieves you of the obligation to rebid. Your free rebid of 2C should promise a 6-card suit, not the 5-card suit with poor spot cards that you actually had.
It also seems odd that your partner would elect to let the opponents play in 2D when holding A-10-9 in a suit that you had bid twice. How bad and flat was the rest of partner’s hand?
Particularly in the context of not having raised clubs, your partner’s lead of the 10 was indeed misleading (excuse the pun). The ace was the right card to lead.
Vulnerable against not and facing a passed partner, Eat’s final 4H bid was most unwise. You have a 7.5 loser hand so even if you think partner has a limit raise (8 losers) you are not close to game values – you would need a 6-loser hand not 7.5 losers. You also have no reason to expect to have better than a 9-card fit, so whether you are bidding according to the losing trick count or the level of fit, 4H is an overbid.
Incidentally, on the West hand I would be bidding 2NT to show a sound 4-card raise rather than 3H, which sounds more pre-emptive.
Just because the computer says 12 tricks are makeable, you should not assume that it is correct to be in a slam. Here a slam offers reasonable play and there are more chances with diamonds as trumps than in no-trumps. That said, unless South leads a spade, which seems unlikely unless North makes a lead-directing double, 6NT should make. On a normal club lead declarer can simply test the diamonds, cashes the HA and gives up a heart.
On the auction you give it looks like West took the 4NT and 5NT as key card enquiries with hearts as trumps. East might have done better to have bid 4D first before checking on key cards. With solid diamonds and two aces outside, East was not that interested in key cards anyway.
Most people play that a double of 1D would show 4-4 in the majors, in which case a response of 1S would not show 5 spades. The time when a 1S response normally would show 5 is if the overcall was 1H rather than 1D.
You might be in with a chance if North were to open because South would respond with a 4H splinter to a 1S opening. It is much trickier after the 1C-1S-2S start partly because North will fear South has wasted values in clubs and partly because it is harder to pinpoint the heart shortage. Perhaps if North makes a 3D trial bid over 2S then South would jump to 4H to show the singleton – but holding only 11 HCP I doubt South would do that.
