Grand Slams
Manchester Congress is now over and we have a handful of winners with laurel on their heads, and a shedload of players who are eager to either forget or to improve on their performance. When looking at ones mistakes, it is important to try to understand why they were made, not just what the mistakes were.
Board: 17
Dealer: North
Vul: None
North
♠ J105
♥ J953
♦ 10
♣ Q10943
West East
♠ KQ4 ♠ A873
♥ 762 ♥ AK8
♦ AKQ76 ♦ 98532
♣ K6 ♣ A
South
♠ 962
♥ Q104
♦ J4
♣ J8752
West North East South
pass 1♦ pass
1♠ pass 3♠ pass
6♦
You are sitting in West with a monster hand after partners 1♦ opening, at the same time, you don’t have a 4 card suit you can bid to keep the bidding going, unless you use something like inverted minors. So what do you bid? At the table I bid 1♠ .
Janet jumped to 3♠ and again I was on the spot? If I now used RKCB would I be able to convince my Partner that we should be in 6 (or 7) Diamonds and not in spades? I was afraid of getting it wrong, so I bid what I thought would be a good contract. As a result we got a well deserved 45% score. If I had continued bidding without being scared of what could go wrong it could have gone:
West North. East South
pass 1♦ pass
1♠ pass 3♠ pass
4NT(1) pass 5♦ (2) pass
5NT(3) pass 6♥ (4) pass
6NT(5) All pass
(1) RKCB with S as trumps
(2) 0 or 3
(3) Specific Kings
(4) King of H
(5) Cannot count 13 tricks, but 6 NT must be second best
Looking at the hands it must be a better way to bid them! The problem is the initial Spade response! Look at how much more information you get if you start by biding 1♥
West North East South
pass 1♦ pass
1♥ pass 1♠ pass
2♣ (1) pass 3♥ (2) pass
4NT(3) pass 5♣ (4) pass
7♦ (5) All Pass
(1) Forth Suit Forcing
(2) Denying club stopper and showing secondary ♥ support. East must be 4351
(3) RKCB with H as trumps
(4) 1 or 4
(5) Now you can count to 13: 3+2+5+2+ a H ruff as you discard one of Easts ♥ on the ♣ King.
Joy and Irving Blakey passed this test with flying colours!
Running it past Adam Wiseberg - the person you can credit for this column resembling something close to English - he asked: How do you know you are getting a ♥ away on a ♣ King?
Answer: Because the hound didn’t bark!
If you assume partner has 4342, with a hand within your agreed 1 NT range, partner would would have open 1NT. Outside the range, without a fit for your suit, partner would rebid 1NT.
As partner has done neither, partners 1♠ rebid is a 100% confirmation of a 4x5x distribution.
When partner jumps to 3♥ over 2♣ a 4351 distribution is confirmed.
When partner over 4NT shows 4 controls (♠ A, ♥ AK ♣ A) it is obvious that you can discard one of Easts hearts on your ♣ King and then achieve a ♥ ruff.
The moral of the story - when bidding a non existing suit, chose the one from which a RKCB enquiry can give you the most information. Spade have 1 missing key card whilst hearts has 3.
Espen Gisvold
PS
If you see a hand you think is worth mentioning please leave me a note at: Espen
|