TIPS FOR IMPROVERS

Points of interest from the September 2013 duplicates

1       Slam on 27 points

Board 2 Monday 23 September – Vulnerability North South – Dealer East

East opens a strong (15-17 No Trump).  West transfers by bidding 2 Diamonds.  As East has good four card Heart support and a near maximum he should break the transfer by jumping to 3 Hearts.  Although West has only 11 points he has only a five loser hand and should suggest the possibility of slam by making a cuebid of 4 Clubs.  By bidding 4 Clubs West is showing a control in Clubs either the Ace, King or a singleton.  At the same time West is denying any control in Spades.  Why is this?  The answer is that when commencing a cue-bidding sequence you should generally make the cheapest cue-bid available.  Thus when you bypass a cue-bid at a lower level (3 Spades being lower than 4 Clubs) you are denying a control in the suit which you have bypassed.  East now wheels out 4NT Roman Keycard Blackwood.  Note that for East to do so it is compulsory for him to have a control in Spades.  If East’s Spades were QJx instead of Kx he would simply sign off in 4 Hearts because he would know that two Spade losers were off the top.  West’s response of 5 Clubs shows 1 or 4 Keycards.  East now bids 5 Diamonds the next step which is asking West whether he has the Queen of trumps.  West answers in the affirmative by jumping to 6 Hearts.  (In some situations West might bid 6 Diamonds to show both the King of Diamonds and the Queen of trumps.  However in this situation it is almost impossible for a grand slam to be on and so he simply bids 6 Hearts).

2       The Six of Clubs saves the day

Board 7 Monday 23 September – Vulnerability Amber – Dealer South

¹           Showing at least 9 points usually with not more than two cards in partner’s suit.

Note that having redoubled when East then passes North’s bid of 1 Diamond this is a forcing pass in case West wishes to double 1 Diamond for penalties.

South makes the opening lead of a low Diamond to the Jack and King.  Clearly in order to make nine tricks the Club suit will need to yield five tricks.  If the suit breaks 3-2 there is no problem but if the suit breaks 4-1 (quite likely in view of North’s take out double) then as long as North’s singleton is the 10, 9 or 8 then this is possible.  At trick 2 the Queen of Clubs is covered by the King and Ace, North dropping the 8.  Declarer now returns to hand with a low Heart to the King and plays a second Club.  If South plays the 5 then the 6 is inserted from the Dummy and five Clubs tricks result.  Equally if South splits his equals of 109 then the Jack also wins and the 76 in the Dummy are now equals against 105 or 95 to again yield five Club tricks. 

Note however that if we swop round West’s 6 of Clubs with South’s 5 of Clubs that the contract could not make as K1096 would be guaranteed to make two tricks as after South splits with the 9 on the second round he would be left with 106 with the Dummy having 7542.

3       Support Redouble makes reaching slam easy

Board 14 Thursday 26 September – Vulnerability White – Dealer East

¹           Support Redouble showing three cards in Hearts.  2 Hearts would show four card support.

²           Splinter bid showing singleton or void

In the early 1990’s Eric Rodwell (one half of the greatest American partnership of the last 25 years Meckstroth and Rodwell) proposed the use of a redouble in competitive auctions to be able to distinguish between having 3 card support for partner’s major suit and 4 card support.  Thus suppose you open 1 Diamond, left hand opponent passes, partner bids 1 Heart and right hand opponent doubles.  Rodwell’s innovation is that if you support partner’s hearts you are guaranteeing 4 card support while if you redouble then this is a support redouble showing exactly three card support for partner’s hearts. 

In the play if North opens with Ace and another Club Declarer must be careful not to use the precious 4 of Hearts.  He trumps with an intermediate Heart, unblocks the Ace of Diamonds and then plays King of Hearts and a second Heart (again keeping back the 4 of Hearts) to the Ace.  The King and Queen of Diamonds are cashed, exposing the ruffing finesse against the Jack.  The 10 of Diamonds is covered by the Jack ruffed with any Heart other than the 4 and now at trick 9 the precious 4 of Hearts is played to Dummy’s 5 to enjoy the now established 9 of Diamonds for +980.  (I have deliberately changed the layout of the North South Diamonds from that which existed at the table so that any Declarer who carelessly used the 4 of Hearts at trick 2 would be punished for their profligacy).