Jennbridge: Prepping for Philly

Jenn and I are going to Philadelphia soon to compete in the World Mixed Pairs, which is part of the world championships being played there starting October 2. For more information about this, here is a link to their website: http://www.worldbridge.org/tourn/Philadelphia.10/Information.htm.

We decided to practice our matchpoint game on-line. Last night, we got into a matchpoint tournament and I picked up this hand:

♠ K75
♥ A92
♦ KJ85
♣ AQ3

Jenn dealt and opened 1 Spade. With a strong hand and 3-card support for a major, our approach is to bid 2 of a new suit to create a game force, then show our support the next round. So I bid 2 Diamonds, she rebid 2 Spades, showing a 6-card suit, and I bid 3 Spades. Jenn now bid 4 Spades, showing a minimum opener. What now?

I decided that with 17 HCP, a known 9-card or longer fit, and such good controls, there was a good chance we had the cards for slam. So I bid 4NT, RKC. She replied 5 Diamonds, showing one or four keycards. I bid 5 Hearts, which asked if she had the spade queen. She now made the nice reply of 6 Hearts, which showed the spade queen and also the heart king. What now?

We were missing a keycard, so we had to play at the 6-level. I decided that it was best to bid 6NT rather than 6 Spades. Jenn had the king of hearts, so I knew we had a second heart stopper. It was matchpoints so No-Trump scores more. But I would have made the same bid at IMPs, since it could have been important to have the lead come up to me with tenaces in both minors and we were missing an ace.

This worked out well, as I looked at:

♠ QJ10943
♥ KT
♦ AQ9
♣ 96

♠ K75
♥ A92
♦ KJ85
♣ AQ3

I got a heart lead, knocked out the ace of spades and scored 12 easy tricks. We got over 94% of the matchpoints. Note that 6 Spades will go down if they lead a club and the king is offside (it was).

Good luck!