[Wentys]

Hi - this hand came up in what was supposed to be a "standard" auction with few frills. West opened 1C, North passed. East can either show their 4-card major (1S), or jump-shift to 2D to emphasize hand strength. Which ought to take priority?

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Thanks, Peter

[jillybean]

Playing standard, I would start by showing my length and strength with 2D , all roads now lead to 3nt

[smerriman]

A jump shift should show something very specific to make up for the loss of space, and this isn't it. 1♦ for me.

[DavidKok]

1♦, intending to rebid spades next round. The advice to show a major immediately is for hands that are not worth a rebid (with discussion on whether that means 'forcing to game' or 'at least invitational'), and is called the Walsh style. Arguably it is not standard, but it may as well be.
At any rate it doesn't apply to hands strong enough to force to game. Now with longer diamonds and a 4(+)cM we bid the longest suit first, to tell partner of our shape.
As a final note, with only 4 diamonds and a 4cM (so balanced or 4441) we'd show the major suit first regardless of strength.

[Stephen Tu]

Wentys, on 2024-November-24, 11:51, said:

Hi - this hand came up in what was supposed to be a "standard" auction with few frills. West opened 1C, North passed. East can either show their 4-card major (1S), or jump-shift to 2D to emphasize hand strength. Which ought to take priority?

Neither, with this hand. The normal bid is 1d. Show suits in natural order, longest first, when holding game forcing strength. Walsh style has become very standard in some countries, bypassing diamonds, but that only applies when not holding GF strength. Bidding 1s even with this hand is called "MAFIA" style, and is very non-std, and requires very non-std followups to be able to show GF longer diamonds later.

So just bid 1d, then maybe show spades later, depending on what partner rebids and your style (whether partner denies 4 cd spades or not on their rebid), and you will also show your strength later, usually by using a 4th suit artificial bid, or maybe by reversing into spades.

Don't bid 2d either, these days if playing strong jump shifts, they are usually played as denying a 2nd unbid suit. So either 1 suited diamonds with a longer suit, or something with a massive fit for opener's suit, or longer diamonds with stoppers outside and slam invitational (not just 15). The idea is there is no huge reason to show strength right away (you can always show the GF strength on a later round instead), so you want to cater your jump shifts to show certain hands that are difficult to show all the features after a non-jump response, not just jump shifting every time you have a GF, since lots of those can be shown on later rounds, and non-jump responses give more room for descriptive rebids by opener.