eagles123, on 2018-December-04, 05:51, said:
no blame for me, I guess if East had strong NT type hand with 4 spades he'd double, and with a strong hand with 5 spades he'd bid some number of spade, so he's basically showing a 5th spade and unbalanced weak hand (I might be wrong on that). and as far is west is concerned okay he knows there's a likely 9 card fit, but for all he knows 4H is cold for N/S.
Yes this. Just swap the black jacks and it's there. I assume you are playing a variant of Acol here, so you haven't got the option of a forcing 1NT - and that in itself might wrong side a contract if opener is balanced and strong - or Bergen responses. So you are left with a fairly non-descript 2
♠ raise. It might be possible - though you'd have to analyse this thoroughly - to have a flexi option of 2
♠ being a constructive 8-11 with 3
♠ or <8 with 4
♠ here. Though whether that will help on this particular hand is open to question. I think you also need to know what a competitive X means in this type of auction by both partners, and that it adds to the system constructively.
I'm not totally convinced that East should compete to 3
♠ as a) 4
♥ may be cold and you could push them there; b) South could be sitting with a trump stack over East - North is likely to be short given the bidding. Though admittedly, it's a lot easier seeing all four hands here.
It'll be interesting to know how the bidding went at the other table, and their agreements.