Julian Pottage
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Do you mean you were taught not to overcall with a four-card suit? That is a sensible piece of advice. If you do not open 1 of a suit with a 4-card suit, you would have to play an impossibly wide range for a 1NT opening.
With the good spot cards I think the South hand is worth an opening bid but the jump raise is a bit rich! 1D-P-1S-P-2S is definitely the textbook start. Normally with 11 HCP and only 4 spades North would continue with 2NT, trying for game while telling South that the spade fit is only 4-3 if South has raised with three spades. With no tens or nines and poor trumps, North might take a dim view and pass 2S. Assuming North does rebid 2NT, South must then decide to sign off in 3S or jump to 4S. Normally with an aceless 11 points you would be signing off. Vulnerable at teams I would bid 4S but I am not sure I would under other conditions.
I would not respond 1NT. Playing 5-card majors I would raise 1H to 2H. If you play that you open 1H with 4-4 in the majors (as most Acol players would) you respond 1S.
You had a very good sequence up until the final bid. North had cue bid diamonds and hearts so the only possible concern was the trump suit. While on some auctions 5NT could mean ‘pick a slam’, here you had clearly agreed spades and there was no question of playing in another suit. 5NT should therefore be asking about trumps. I am not sure what Bernard recommends but as the bid does not come up very often perhaps it would be sensible to play 6C = 0 top honours, 6D = 1 top honour, 6H = 2 top honours.
With 20 points and a decent 5-card suit, you would expect to make a slam rather more often than not facing a 12-14 1NT. It was fair enough to start with Stayman because there would be a chance of making 7S if partner had four spades, the SA, the HA and the CK. Once partner denies a 4-card major, you can simply bid 6NT. If you are playing matchpoints, you are not interested in playing in 6C and cannot be sure it is a better contract anyway.
No bidding system is perfect. If you had opened a strong 1NT, partner would presumably have raised to 3NT and you would be in the same situation.
You could raise to 3D, though of course if you do that partner will think you have five spades. I play that a raise to 3D shows a slightly better than minimum hand but it is unlikely you would be playing that.
The alternative, if you have two low in one of the major suits, is to open your four-card minor rather than your four-card major. If you had opened 1D, your partner would presumably have raised to 3D and then you could rebid 3S to show a spade stopper while denying a heart stopper. This is perhaps the best solution.
if partner has precisely A-Q-10 of clubs you need to switch to the jack; the downside is that partner might have A-Q-8 and a diamond holding that means declarer has no discards coming (Q-x), in which case you need to tell partner you do not have the ten. Then again, if you switch to the five of clubs, partner may think you have the king. This is a difficult one because if you think for ages and switch to the jack of clubs it will be obvious you do not have ten with it. At the table you would know the tempo of North’s 4H bid. If it was a quick confident bid, you would place North with 7 hearts, in which case it cannot cost to switch to the jack of clubs.
Having bid spades twice already, you do not need to double to get partner to lead a spade. A double of 3NT is more attractive if it will help partner to find the right lead.
While it is true that with your hand suggests the suits are breaking badly for the opponents, you cannot be sure that partner has any values. It is also possible that your LHO, who has bid no-trumps twice, has AK9x of spades, which will provide three stoppers.
If you defeat 3NT undoubled, you will probably get a reasonable score anyway.
With a void in spades, doubling 4S would be a strange action. East could bid 5C hoping that West has support for one rounded suit or the other (or as here a very long diamond suit). West would have to have a very long diamond suit to bid 5D over 5C and perhaps East could raise to 6D.
In my methods West cannot bid any more than 2D because 3D would be a fit-showing jump.
This is a really tricky hand. One does not like to pass with so much strength or overcall 1NT with such a tenuous diamond holding. You might overcall 1S on the chunky 4-card suit. I definitely would not pass vulnerable at teams because the risk of missing game is too high, though you have said it was pairs. To be honest I think I would overcall 1S whatever.
I can recommend a book ‘Standard Bidding with SAYC’ by Ned Downey & Ellen Pomer.
You can also try http://www.bridgeguys.com
Hugh, please could you clarify what your holdings were in the minors. It looks like you had a void in one and AJ84 in the other but I cannot be sure which way round you mean.
With dour spades and a doubleton heart, I favour doubling. Some people favour bidding no-trumps in this type of situation to show the point count. With this hand while it is true that you have good intermediates, they are not necessarily in the right place. K-10-9-x of spades certainly would be worth more than 3 points because the opponents are likely to lead spades.
If you have a 2-suited hand, having 2 strong 5-card suits would be enough. With a single suited hand, you would want to strong 6-card suit.
With a 5-loser hand you are unlikely to miss anything opening at the one level so I would think a 3- or 4-loser hand – but high cards are really important.
The rule seems a reasonable one to me. Since it does not refer to overall strength, I do not think you would need to adjust in the way you suggest.
Suppose the bidding starts (1S)-P-(P)-X-(P). If you have A-Q-J-x-x of spades, that gives a count of 3 for trump honours, 5 for trump length and 1 for the level of the contract and so satisfies the rule of 9.
