Jon Shuster provided an excellent commentary on Board 20. The hand records indicated that a slam could be made in either spades or hearts. This is what Jon said:
"Board 20 shows the advantage of responding with a 2♦ bid ater partner opens 2♣ showing at least one K or 2Q. The 2♥ response is reserved for weaker hands. 2♦ over 2♣ is game forcing. Consequently, the opener does not need to make a jump bid except to set an unequivocal trump suit: 2♣ - 2♦ - 3♠ (Spades are trump, start cue bidding). Responder should almost never bid anything but 2♦ or 2♥ over 2♣ . For example, imagine you have ♠ -AQJ10xxx ♥ -xx ♦ -xx ♣ -xx and your partner opens 2♣ . Do you know the most likely rebid of the 2♣ opener is? It is 2NT. You can then transfer and protect partner’s hand from being led through. You would respond with 3♥ bid, then bid 4♠ over 3♠ …a slam try since you did not Texas transfer.
Now look at Board 20, both sides vulnerable, and East opens 2♣.
The recommended bidding is
West East
P 2♣
2♦ (Game force) 2NT (22+) (It is wrong to bid 3NT as 2NT enables responder to use Stayman or Transfers )
3♥ (transfer) 3♠
4♥ * 4NT (temporarily asking for KC in ♥ )
5♣ (1 or 4) 6S
*Note that this order shows 5-5 in the majors, while transferring to ♥ first and then bidding 3♠ does not."
With all 4 Aces and Kings, Opener can comfortably bid 6♠.
So what about the ♥ slam? Jon continued his comments with this:
"Stunningly, 6♥ can be made by employing a dummy reverse. The best lead is a ♥ , won by the A. You time the hand to ruff two ♣ low and ruff two ♦, the last with the♥ Q. This play make 6 tricks in with the two outside AK holdings and 6 trump tricks (4 ruffs and the AK)."
This is not as easily made as the ♠ slam and is not statistically promising. Dimitri Bourlikov calculated the odds on making the ♥ slam: "You need ♦ to be 4-4, ♣ to be 4-3, and ♠ to be 3-2 (a combined 0.33 x 0.62 x 0.68 = 14% chance). In addition, the hand with 2 ♠ has to be unable to pitch a ♠ on the fourth ♣ so you can cash the AK of ♠ before you get ruffed."
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