[mr1303]

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Not our finest hour. We had no agreement on the 3H bid. South wasn't sure if it should be showing 18-19 balanced without a heart stop, or an advanced cuebid agreeing spades, so tried 4NT as a hedge. When partner responded 5D (showing 1 or 4 key cards) South decided that this should agree spades and show 4 key cards, so tried for a grand.

They cashed their three aces for 2 off (doubled sadly)

[nigel_k]

Don't understand 3♥ at all. 2♠ on that hand looks normal, 3♠ an overbid (by quite a lot), and anything else is wierd.

Certainly no blame to South for assuming that partner must have more than one keycard. Maybe South should have bid 5♥ to find out about the queen of spades before making a grand try, and possibly also should have converted to 6NT at the end, but none of that would have mattered obviously.

[the hog]

The hand is a minimum opening bid. Many people would not open. 3H is a gross overbid. What is wrong with 2S? This is 100% North's fault.

[Bbradley62]

100% blame to North for the already-stated reasons.

[hotShot]

Obviously 3♥ is an overbid from North and North has to take almost all of the blame, but South bidding is no really good either.

[cherdano]

It was clearly North's fault. But what on earth is 6♥? You have an easy grand try available with 5♥, followed by 6♣ or even 7N over 5N (which should show ♠Q, no king, but something else useful, i.e. ♣Q).

[FrancesHinden]

The auction shows quite a common misunderstanding from North.

Many people play that after partner opens a major and RHO overcalls, that a jump raise is weak and a cue bid shows a 'good raise' - the cue bid isn't anything like game forcing, just shows invitational values. For example, an auction such as 1S (2H) 3H is about 10+ points with 3 or 4 card spade support.

By extension, it is then thought that the same is true by opener, i.e. that

1C P 1S 2H
3H

shows a 'good' raise to 3S with a jump to 3S being weak.
North doesn't really have a 'good' raise (he's got a normal 2S bid or, if they were playing that, a pre-emptive 3S bid), but I wonder if that is where the auction has gone wrong.

It's normal to play the 3H here as a game force, not necessarily with spade support. That's also where South has gone wrong, because 3H might be a hand without spade support, but (e.g.) a strong hand with good, long clubs and no heart stop.

We could go into a lot of philosophy about why opener's bids have different meanings to responder's bids on a similar auction, but unfortunately the margin here is too small.

[ggwhiz]

Yes, the only way the 3♥ bid makes any sense is if North forgot they opened 1♣ instead of passing which should have at least crossed their mind.