Post by Jonathan FergusonUnfavorable, 2nd seat
54 K732 2 KQT864
P-P-2S-X
3S-4H-P-4N
P -?
You passed in 2nd seat, either because of the vulnerability or the side 4 card major or because you had no weak 2D available.
Do you have the suits in the right order? In the below, I'm assuming the
6-card suit is clubs, as that's the normal order to write the suits in,
but then the comment about weak 2D makes no sense.
Post by Jonathan FergusonOver 3S you bid 4H.
What is 4N and what do you bid?
Does partner have a bid to show the minors over 2S? If so, then the X
obviously shows hearts (I'm assuming this is being played with its
normal takeout meaning), and thus the 4N is Blackwood (of whatever
variant we agreed), and I reply with my number of aces, using whatever
scheme we've agreed.
If partner doesn't have a bid to show the minors, then this might be
Blackwood and might be "pick a minor"; hopefully, we'd have an
agreement, because this is hardly a rare bidding sequence. (In most of
my partnerships this is defined as Blackwood, for example.) If we're
playing simple Blackwood then the answer is 5C either way
(convenient!), and so we can just bid it. If not, I'd still be inclined
towards the Blackwood view; if partner really does have a very strong
hand with both minors, they're probably short in spades, but the
opponents have only shown nine of them.
Post by Jonathan FergusonOkay, now partner tanks for ~ 2 minutes and bids 4N, what do you bid?
Is this hand a problem from an ethical perspective?
The tanking makes it more likely that 4N is Blackwood. (The usual advice
is to plan your response to every possible Blackwood response before
bidding it, as a pause before a Blackwood bid is one of the least
ethically sensitive times to make it.) If partner has a bid to show the
minors over 2S, then there's really no possible misinterpretation of the
bid and no judgement in making it, so there's no logical alternative to
answering Blackwood and thus no ethical restriction.
If there's doubt about the meaning of 4N, I'm probably ethically
constrained to treat it as "pick a minor" (which would be unlikely to
require a large amount of thought), and reply 5C. If that happens to be
the correct Blackwood reply too, then there's no logical alternative to
it and again no ethical restriction.
--
ais523