TIPS FOR IMPROVERS
Points of interest from the April 2016 duplicates
1 Wrong contract at all 12 tables !
Board 20 Monday 11 April – Vulnerability Amber – Dealer West
|
|
KJ9x
x
A10x
AQJxx
|
|
|
AQ10x
A109xx
Kx
xx
|
|
xxx
Qx
QJ98x
xxx
|
|
|
87
KJxxx
xxx
Kxx
|
|
|
North
|
East
|
South
|
West
|
|
Double
Pass or 2NT
|
Pass
Pass
|
1NT
|
1 Heart
Pass
|
Not a single North South pair ended up in the correct contract which is either 1NT or 2NT with South Declarer.
After West opens 1 Heart North has a routine takeout double. East passes and South should bid 1NT. This denies four cards in Spades and is a constructive bid usually showing 7 to 10 points with a good stop in Hearts. At teams North would probably raise to 2NT but at pairs he might go for the more conservative action of passing 1NT. North has no reason to believe that 2 Clubs will score better than 1NT. Indeed assuming that 1NT makes seven tricks then Clubs will need to make nine tricks to gain Match Points.
Even if West finds the best lead of the King of Diamonds Declarer can make eight tricks by winning the second Diamond and cannot be prevented from making two tricks in the major suits in addition to five Club tricks and the Ace of Diamonds.
2 Splinter by both North and South leads to Grand Slam
Board 12 Thursday 14 April – Vulnerability North South – Dealer West
|
|
J10xx
A10xx
x
AKQx
|
|
|
x
Q98x
KQ10x
10xxx
|
|
xxx
KJxx
xxxxx
x
|
|
|
AKQxx
x
AJ9
Jxxx
|
|
|
North
|
East
|
South
|
West
|
|
1 Club
3 Diamonds
4NT
5 Hearts
7 Spades
|
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass
|
1 Spade
4 Hearts
5 Diamonds
6 Spades
Pass
|
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass
|
This hand is a great Grand Slam to reach with only 29 points between the two hands. Seven pairs out of twelve reached the Small Slam but no pair reached the Grand Slam.
After North opens 1 Club and South responds 1 Spade North jumps to 3 Diamonds. This is a mini-splinter and shows a raise to at least 3 Spades with a singleton or void in Diamonds. The South hand is extremely powerful and South knows that the partnership is definitely heading for at least a small slam. However because of South’s Club holding it would be inappropriate for South to bid RKCB at this point. Rather he should paint a picture of his own hand and let North do the asking. Holding such strong Spades the best second bid by South is to likewise make a splinter bid of 4 Hearts over 3 Diamonds showing a singleton or void in Hearts and implying strong Spades.
North can now invoke RKCB and South shows 3 Keycards (cannot be zero in view of the splinter bid). North now bids the next step (not in trumps) asking for the Queen of trumps and South jumps to 6 Spades to confirm the Queen of trumps is present but that he has no other King to show. North can then bid the Grand Slam holding AKQ in Clubs.
13 tricks roll in provided that Declarer trumps Diamonds twice in the Dummy prior to drawing trumps.
3 Minor suit slam is best
Board 3 Wednesday 27 April – Vulnerability East West – Dealer South
|
|
KJ10x
x
Kxxx
KJ9x
|
|
|
xx
QJ97x
xxx
10xx
|
|
Q9xx
10xx
J10xx
Qx
|
|
|
Axx
AKxx
AQ
Axxx
|
|
|
North
|
East
|
South
|
West
|
|
3 Clubs
4NT
6 Clubs
|
Pass
Pass
Pass
|
2NT
3 Hearts
5 Clubs
Pass
|
Pass
Pass
Pass
Pass
|
Not a single pair managed to bid to the excellent 6 Club contract on the above hand. They should have taken a leaf from Boris Schapiro who more than 35 years ago in one of his Sunday Times bridge columns advised that after a quantitative bid of 4NT if you are non-minimum you should offer a suit at the five level.
South opens 2NT and North bids Stayman. South responds 3 Hearts and now North bids 4NT quantitative. Note that 4NT is always quantitative on this auction. If North wishes to agree Hearts he bids the other major at the cheapest level in this case 3 Spades, a bid which has no other useful meaning since if North simply had five Spades he would have started proceedings off with a transfer bid.
South has 21 points with excellent controls but rather than gamble on bidding 6NT he should show his other four card suit by bidding 5 Clubs. North is delighted to raise to 6 Clubs.
Assuming the lead of the Queen of Hearts against 6 Clubs note that South should not take the Club finesse but should instead play the Ace and King of Clubs. This guarantees the contract against a 3-2 Club break. On the actual hand the Queen drops and now Declarer makes 13 tricks if he guesses which defender possesses the Queen of Spades. However even if the Queen of Clubs does not drop Declarer simply abandons trumps and makes 12 tricks on a cross ruff (discarding a Spade on the King of Diamonds) with 2 Spade tricks, 2 Heart tricks, 3 Diamond tricks and five trump tricks.
In the Wednesday Duplicate the one pair who played in 6NT duly went down as they were not blessed with second sight on the lie of the black suit Queens.
|