Playing with Sharyn for the first time, as dealer I picked up this hand in yesterday's club game:
♠ KQ862
♥ --
♦ QJ
♣ AKJ982
What would you open?
A 1♣ opening seems clear. You're a bit underpowered for 2♣, and also that opening can be very awkward for two-suiters. My plan is to jump shift to 2♠ when partner responds in a red suit, and then bid spades again. This should make for an easy and highly descriptive game-forcing auction.
However partner's response is 1♠! Now what?
It happens that just before the session started we agreed to play splinter bids without further discussion of the details. That's very handy here, but what is the correct splinter? 3♥ or 4♥? In my view 2♥ would be a reverse, presumably forcing, so 3♥ should be sufficient.
Yet to avoid ambiguity I chose 4♥. Partner then called 4NT, key card Blackwood.
That's another conundrum. Some Blackwood methods call for special responses with a void. This one says I should bid 5NT to show an even number of key cards and a void. But since we have no such agreement I chose 5♠ to show two key cards with the trump Queen.
Sharyn then called 5NT, asking for Kings. With strong clubs and an extra trump there's no need to torture partner with the final decision. 7♠ was an easy choice.
Partner's hand was:
♠ AJ75
♥ AQ3
♦ A9432
♣ 4
Careful play yielded 13 tricks after a club lead.