1. Two spades. Partner’s two-heart bid, a new suit by responder, is 100% forcing, and you should now make the most descriptive bid possible. You can do this by bidding two spades. Partner already knows that you started with minimum values because of your two-diamond rebid, and it’s now time to let him know that you have modest support for spades.

It would be wrong to raise two hearts to three hearts, which would indicate greater length in hearts than spades. The high-card disparity between the two suits is not a decisive factor. It is far more important to find the longest combined trump suit. Partner should have at least five spades (if he had four spades and four hearts, he would have responded with one heart initially), in which case spades will almost surely be the better trump suit.

2. Three notrump. Your two-diamond bid was a slight underbid, but there was no better alternative at the time. You can now compensate for this by jumping to three notrump. The chance of making three notrump opposite a partner who has made two forcing bids is excellent.

Two notrump would be inadequate, because that’s what you’d bid if your queen of clubs were the deuce. Since it isn’t, you bid three notrump to show that your two-diamond bid was based on maximum values.

3. Three clubs. It is better to bid three clubs than two notrump, which might seem the more normal thing to do. The failure to bid two notrump is a warning to partner that your cards are mostly in the minor suits, leaving you very few in the major suits. At the same time, you are telling partner that you don’t have a notrump type of hand. Once you’ve bid three clubs and described your hand properly, you can leave the rest to partner.

4. Three spades. It would be wrong to bid only two spades, which would indicate values similar to those shown in the first hand above. With reasonable support for both of partner’s suits, and a singleton club besides, you should happily give partner a jump-preference in spades.

Tomorrow: The end justifies the means.