Posted 2018-January-11, 02:44
My answers to your 3 questions, and a few thoughts on west’s bid after the 2S, P...?
In my village X shows 4 S or a strong enough hand to adjust- that means I adjust if partner bids Ss. After the X you rely on 4 spades but if west adjust I reassess
Even if east passed then a free 2S now should show a tad stronger than a Q (likely under the cosh) moreover with a flat 10 losers. Definitely pass not 2S
But let’s say we are when we are...it come to 2S-P-? What now? Well it’s teams, so our chums will be showing their score on this hand in half an hour, what are we going to offer our score? Reflect its one of those hands with points roughly split, so potentially quite swingy hand. The absolute worst would be chums offer -600; they banged 3NT and the D fell 2-2/Q Singleton and just enough to make a C finesse. We’d just have to be philosophical on that. A more good result is chums offer +110/140 in 2/3H and we make a plus too- a very useful half dozen imps. The bad one would be chums offer -110 as their opp went plus, just as we go down too- that could be half a dozen imps out- not good, not at all!
So as West I’d reflect that it’s really important that we go plus here, and I’d try to deliver that by rank better Bridge (and not playing against the odds and evidence)
So first let’s assume East’s 2S bid had 4 points and 5 Ss- how will she fare in 2S?
Trying to play finesses is likely impossible- the hand tends to be too weak to access. East is unlikely 4 Hs so a nice C/H Cross ruff looks asking a bit too much. So I’m imaging something like 3S+1H ruff+ hopefully 1D but asking for 2 might be too much and 1C, possibly 2 in the finesse. Total 7. Oh dear- it’s quite likely east will go down even if she has more shape and power. If I’m right on this then I must adjust now. The chance of a minus is too high
What about 3C now? Let’s assume now east either pass, so I’m in a 4-4 fit in C, or east bid 3D, so I’m in a 5-3 fit. How many tricks now? 1S, 0H, so I focus on the minors and need 8 tricks now. In D I’m hoping for Cs finesse and ruff. And in C then she is something like 4/5: 2/3: ?: 4 so short Ds and hope to set them up. Either way I can see 1+0+5+3. Hence 3C after 2S-P-?