Julian Pottage
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It somewhat depends what the 11 points were. If your partner had A-K-Q-J of spades and a jack on the side then a pre-emptive opening sounds very reasonable. If, instead, she had a couple of aces and a king, all in different suits, then a 1S opening would be much more appropriate. Since 4S is game, it has a fractionally higher upper point count limit than lower pre-emptive openings. 5-9 or 6-10 are typical ranges for weak 2S and 3S openings but if the hand is strongly offensively orientated 11 would be OK for a 4S opening.
It is very unlikely that opener has four spades (though just possible to have a 4-0-4-5 shape) so 3S shows a spade stopper and the fact that North has four spades is somewhat coincidental. Normally, when minor suits are involved, bids in other suits are showing stopper for a possible 3NT rather than controls for a possible slam.
I should add that I play 1NT-3H as short hearts so with my regular partner we could avoid 3NT even after the 1NT opening – but most people play 3H as natural rather than a shortage.
While with some 5422 hands I would agree with a 1NT opening, I do not with this hand. If you open 1D, you have a convenient 2C rebid if partner responds 1H or 1S; also you are happy if you end up defending and partner leads a diamond.
1D-2C-3C-3S-4C-5C is the natural auction with these hands. Possibly North would make a 4H splinter over 3C but South would sign off in 5C anyway.
If you have opened a short 1C, you either rebid in 1NT or raise partner. If you make any other rebid, including a 2D reverse, you indicate that the club suit is genuine. When playing a short club, I play that if partner makes a 2C inverted raise then a 2D rebid shows a weak no-trump – but that would require a specific agreement.
While on competitive auctions, partner does sometimes need to guess whether your clubs are real, this should not be the case in an uncontested auction.
By doubling and then bidding 2S you are showing a hand that was a bit too strong for a 1S overcall (about 18-20 points). That seems a reasonable description to me. If the 1S bid on your left is genuine, the suit will not break evenly but with your decent 6-card suit you are not worried about that.
Yes 2S is a natural bid – if you want partner to show a suit, you would double again.
My second choice would be 3S but you could quite easily lose two trumps and one in each side suit if partner has nothing, which is certainly plausible given that both opponents are bidding.
If partner has opened a weak no-trump and an opponent has shown both majors, I do not think you want to be bidding one of the majors on ‘any strength’. If you have fewer than 6 HCP you know the opponents have more points than you do and you also know the suit will be breaking unevenly. At the other end of the scale, if the bid is a sign off, you do not want to have any more than 10 HCP.
If your agreement is that 2H is 11+ HCP, presumably you are playing its as forcing for one round. That seems a reasonable to me, although hands in the 6-10 range will be more common.
Most pairs play a simple bid in a new suit as forcing and everyone plays a jump change of suit as forcing. Your partner’s pass was a breach of discipline.
I play fit-showing jumps after an opponent has overcalled, so 3C would not be the right bid for me, but if you are playing 2C as natural and non-forcing and 3C as natural and forcing then it the right bid for you.
Sometimes this unavoidable. If partner opens 1NT with a 2434 shape and you have a 2335 shape, you are simply going to raise NT (if you have the values to do so) and not consider playing in clubs.
On other auctions, you can avoid it. If you open 1D with 15 points and two low hearts in a 3253 shape and partner raises to 3D, you would not rebid 3NT. Instead you would bid 3S to show the stopper there and see whether partner fancies playing in 3NT knowing you are worried about the hearts.
For a very long time the EBU have been absolutely sticklers for random deals (I know this because I have written simultaneous pairs commentaries for them for many years – sets arrive with a heavy NS bias or heavy EW bias or a couple of likely pass out deals – things you obviously would address if you were making adjustments). It is possible that some counties or more likely clubs would filter the deals in some way. It must be at least 10 years ago but there was a time when the Worldwide simultaneous deals were livelier than average because the chief commentator used to select a set of 32 from 48, nearly always choosing the livelier deals. I am fairly sure that does not happen any more.
With 9 HCP and a decent 5-card suit, the normal Acol response is 2H rather than 1NT. The downside to the 2H response is that partner is more likely to rebid 2S, which I guess is why you decided against 2H at matchpoints.
The communication problems mean that 3NT will not always make but I can see that 1S-2H-3C-3NT is how the field will bid the hands.
Having responded 1NT, I would not give preference back to 2S with a singleton – surely the whole point of the 1NT response was to avoid playing in 2S unless partner has six? Without knowing the opening hand, I would be tempted to bid 2H, though bidding the lower diamond suit would give partner more options.
