You are holding:

 ♠ K Q 9 7

 ♥ A Q 10 5

 ♦ 10 9 8 4

 ♣ A

You hear your LHO open 1 ♠. Your partner bids 2 ♥ which shows at least 11

points. Your RHO bids 3 ♣ and in spite of wondering what crazy was going on you bid 4 ♥

Your LHO bids 5 ♣ and your partner bids 5 ♥. The crazy continues with a 6 ♣ bid

from your right hand opponent. You check the board again and indeed the

vulnerability is even and all the cards are out. Confident that you have the biggest

hand at the table and that your side has 25-26 of the points you double. Pass, Pass,

Pass and you have to lead to 6 ♣.

As usual, you take a reflective moment to consider the bidding and select the

best lead. What if left hand opponent is void in hearts. What if right hand opponent is

void in spades or diamonds. How many clubs does RHO have? There was no preempt.

Who does not have their required points. There is a sinking feeling in your stomach.

So you decide to lead the A ♣ and have a look.

♠ A J 6 5 4 This appears in dummy. What next?

♥ --

♦ A 7 6 5 3

♣ K J 9

Seems Like all declarer has is 8 ♣ to the Q. The rest of the hand. If it is 2 ♥, 1 ♠

and 2 ♦ the contract must go down. Losing 1 ♦ later. If it is 3 ♥, 1 ♣ and 1 ♦ or 3 ♥, 2♠

and 0 ♦ then to ensure that the contract does indeed fail, play a heart to make dummy

ruff at an inconvenient time.

This is only relevant if you led your A ♣ . If you led anything else the contract

makes with you holding 25 of the 40 HCP’s

Board 12  of the Cave Hill game on Saturday January 15.

Grand Slams don’t come along very often and most bidding systems are full of features designed to find the elusive creatures and, just as important, to keep partnerships from over-reaching themselves in the hunt. The last board of round 8 at table 6 is shown below.

I held the North hand and was therefore largely a spectator to the bidding as it developed and to the subsequent play. E/W Use The Precision system

By the time E made his final bid he knew that W had at least 5 Hearts in a hand of 16 or more points, and that he also had 1^st or 2^nd round control in Spades and Diamonds, and 1^st round control in Clubs. Since the 5 Club bid was clearly an indication that West had great expectations, East should have confirmed 1^st round control in Diamonds. He might still have been faced with the same problem over West’s next bid, or maybe West would have plumped for 13 tricks. The real problem for this bidding sequence is that West did not know that East had the Ace of Hearts, and East was unaware of the other two top honours among West’s Hearts. Would Blackwood, in any of its guises, have done better in the early bidding?

Against 6 Hearts I led one of my three small Hearts, as I would have done against the Grand Slam. West made his thirteen tricks by winning the first Heart in hand, and playing to ruff 3 Clubs in dummy, using Diamond ruffs, (he cashed only one top Diamond), and the Spade winner as communication back to his hand, before drawing the outstanding trumps. Ace of Spades and King of Diamonds provided tricks 12 and 13.

A score of 1010 gave E/W 100% and my immediate reaction was that there is no protection by the field. Why didn’t everybody bid this lay down Grand Slam? I subsequently learned that the result was duplicated during the last round of the day and that the only declarer to bid 7 failed to make it.

The Deep Finesse Analysis of this hand says that EW could make 3 3 or 3NT. My Partner South correctly bid 2  for me North to bid 3. Showing no emotion when I passed 2 he plays as follows to take 8 tricks.

A diamond is led and South discards 2 hearts on the A&K; He then plays a low Diamond, E discards a Heart and he ruffs with the 2 of spades.  He leads a low club and West takes the Q and cashes the A, then leads  Queen of Diamonds. East ruffs with the 6 of spades and declarer overuffs with the 8. South then plays his last Heart to the the A and ruffs a Heart, ruffs a club  in dummy and then ruffs another Heart. He has taken 8 of the ten tricks played and conceeds the rest. WHAT A PARTNER!!

Roglyn and Yvonne, Nan and Adelle, both got to 7  in this hand at the Hastings game on Thursday. Playing against Norma and Jackie, the bidding by Roglyn and Yvonne is shown.