A Trio of Slams

The hands were exciting at Friday's game at the club. Jennifer and I were dealt three hands where we got good results by making the right slam decisions.

Hand 1

I was dealt this hand:

AK
ATxx
xxxx
AKx

Jenn dealt and opened 1 Diamond. I immediately thought that this beautiful hand had a lot of slam potential with its 18 prime points. I bided my time with a 1 Heart response. She now bid 1 Spade. I wasn't sure where we were headed, so I continued to bide my time with a fourth suit forcing bid of 2 Clubs. Now she surprised me by jumping to 3 Diamonds. What do you think of your prospects now?

At this point, I was 90% sure that we were cold for 7 Diamonds. What values could she possibly have to justify a jump rebid after we were already in a game forcing auction? Surely she had a very good Diamond suit, since she could have at most one king and no aces outside. If she had as little as AKQxxx of Diamonds, and no other points at all, I could see 13 easy tricks if trumps split 2-1 (6 Diamond tricks, 5 top tricks in my hand plus two spade ruffs). I could easily have just bid 7 Diamonds at this point. But just to make sure, I chose to bid 4 Diamonds. In our methods, this was Roman KeyCard Blackwood for Diamonds, since her jump rebid promised a very good suit. She rebid 5 Clubs, which promised two keycards and the trump queen. Now I was certain that we could make 7 Diamonds, so I bid it. 13 tricks were easy, as she actually held:

Jxxx
x
AKQJTxx
x

AK
ATxx
xxxx
AKx

Note Jenn's decision to make a jump rebid despite holding only 11 HCP. Since she held a terrific source of tricks, she decided, correctly, that this hand had extra values so that a rebid of 2 Diamonds was just not enough. We tied for top on this board.

Hand 2

Jennifer took the reins on this one (by Jenn).

I was quite pleased to hear Bob open 1 spade when I held:

QJxx
void
AQx
AKJ10xx

Before I could plan my bidding, RHO stuck his nose in with a preemptive jump overcall of 3 hearts. What do you bid now? (Think for a moment before reading on...)



I have several options. 4H and 4C are both forcing. But Bob and I play a useful convention called Exclusion Blackwood which enables you to ask for key cards in all suits but one (generally the suit in which you're void). Your jump to the 5 level in your void suit agrees the last suit bid by partner as trumps and asks for the number of key cards outside of that suit.

Accordingly, I jumped to 5H. Before I made this bid I assured myself that the response wouldn't get us too high. I decided that he needed to have at least 1 of the top spade honors for his opening bid, so that we would be safe bidding a small slam. If he had both the ace and king of spades I wanted to be in a grand slam since 13 tricks were likely (if partner has the club queen, you have 5 spades, 6 clubs, the diamond ace and one heart ruff; if not, clubs can be set up by ruffs and you can probably get additional heart ruffs as needed).

As this was an unexpected development, Bob took his time before responding. He then showed two key cards outside of hearts and I jumped to 7 spades. He held:

AKxxx
K10
xxx
Qxx

QJxx
void
AQx
AKJ10xx

As expected, my club suit provided any pitches that needed to be made in the red suits. We scored up 1510 for a very good score.

*Note on exclusion: This is a valuable, but advanced convention. As it can lead to spectacular disasters (we observed a world class partnership declaring a contract at the 5-level in a 2-0 fit), be sure you study and discuss it thoroughly with your partner before attempting to use it. The generally accepted approach, which Bob and I use, is that any jump to the 5-level in a suit other than partner's last bid suit is exclusion with the last bid suit agreed as trumps unless a trump suit has previously been clearly established by a raise. For example, 1 Spade - 2 NT (Jacoby raise) - 4 Clubs (long club suit with 2 of top 3 honors) - 5 Diamonds is exclusion with Spades, not Clubs, agreed as trumps.

Hand 3

Jennifer dealt and opened 1 Club, and I looked at

Axx
KTxx
AKQxx
x

Once again, slam looked likely. I held 16 prime HCP with controls in every suit. I bid 1 Diamond (with a good hand, there is no need to bypass a long diamond suit to bid a 4-card major). She now rebid 1 Heart. Now my hand is gilt-edged. The best thing to do now is simply go right to 4NT, which would be RKC for Hearts, so as not to help the defense. I bid 4C, a splinter raise, which was, in retrospect, a mistake since I knew that she didn't have a Diamond control to cue bid so would bid 4 Hearts no matter what she had. Anyway, I bid 4NT over her 4 Hearts and she showed 2 Keycards without the trump queen, so I bid 6 Hearts since the queen was missing. Now a spade lead, which was indicated by the bidding, would have made the slam dicey since Jenn held:

xxx
AJxx
10xx
AKx

In order to make this slam, it is necessary to discard two spades from her hand on the long diamonds. However, with a spade lead, she would have to guess the location of the trump queen and draw all the trump before running diamonds. However, she was fortunate to get the 9 of diamonds lead. So she was looking at:

Axx
KTxx
AKQxx
x

xxx
AJxx
xxx
AKx

She decided that the best thing to do was to find out, first, if the diamond lead was a singleton. So she went to the ace of clubs and led a second diamond out of her hand. The idea is that if this is ruffed in front of dummy, the hand ruffing in is likely to be long in hearts, so she was planning to eventually play it for the heart queen. Additionally, if the diamond is ruffed, LHO will be ruffing a loser which will enable the diamonds to still be useful for pitching spades. As it happened, her LHO followed to a second diamond. Now she didn't have to find the heart queen. She just cashed the ace and king, leaving the queen outstanding, and played the diamond queen, which was ruffed with the heart queen. Now it was easy to pitch her losing spades on the diamonds and claim. We got 75% of the matchpoints.

Bid your slams!

All's Well That Ends Well

Dave Neuman and I were licking our wounds after getting knocked out of a KO one afternoon in Monterey, but we decided to have a little fun and entered that evening's side game. Little did we know how much fun it would be! There are two hands where our opponents had fun at our expense (through no fault of our own) and we scored absolute zero. The two hands occurrred in successive rounds. The good news is that we survived these to score over 60% and win.

Hand 1: The Grand Slam that Wasn't

We sat down at Pat and Jerry Scoville's table. I picked this up in first seat:

A
AKQxxx
Qxx
AJx

I opened 1 Heart. Dave responded 1 Spade. Now, this hand doesn't seem to need much from partner to make 4 Hearts, so I bid it. This tells him that I really like my hand and have a strong trump suit. Dave now bid 5 Diamonds. This was a signal that he was initiating a slam try, but couldn't bid Blackwood, so he probably didn't have a club control. Now I'm nearly sure that we can make at least a small slam, since he needed decent cards to do this. I'm thinking of a possible grand slam now if Dave has enough. for example, if Dave has a little as KQxxxx/xxx/Ax/xx, it makes 7 if either hearts are 2/2 with spades 4/2 or any heart split with spade 3/3, and he could easily have more.

So how should I go about finding out if he has enough? The two logical choices are 5 Spades and 5NT. Each of these bids promise possession by the partnership of all the first round controls if the 5 Diamond cuebid was the ace or a void. I was somewhat concerned that Dave might interpret 5NT as "Pick a slam", so I chose to bid 5 Spades since that was an unambiguous grand slam try. This bid showed the spade ace and club ace as well as strong trumps and invited him to bid 7 Hearts if he had more than I might expect.

Dave took the plunge and bid 7 Hearts. Pat joked with us and said something like "Well, it looks like you guys did it to us again!" Before I saw dummy, I then jokingly said, "Well, I haven't made it yet!" Dave tabled this hand:

KQxxx
Jx
AKTx
xx

A
AKQxxx
Qxx
AJx
I took one look at it and knew we did well to bid this grand slam since we had 13 top tricks once I drew trumps. So I joked to them, "Well, hearts could always be 5-0". Neither one of them said anything, but now I know that Jerry was quietly smirking to himself. I won the opening club lead in my hand and played a heart to the jack, and Pat puts the 4 of clubs on the table! I was sure that she was razzing me about my joke about the heart split and would say "Just kidding!" So I turned over and looked into her eyes waiting for it, but she just laughed and left that awful card there. Now, at last, Jerry, who knew all along that he had us, laughed and said something like "You were right!" The rascal was sitting there with T98xx. So down we went in a grand slam unlikely to be bid by anyone else in this field.

Hand 2: Smellling Like a Rose

At the next table, I picked up in fourth seat, with both sides vulnerable against two sweet old ladies:

void
Qx
Qxxx
QJ9xxxx

LHO opened 1 Diamond. Dave jumped to 2 Spades, a weak jump overcall. RHO bids 3 Hearts. It now goes pass, pass, pass! LHO had passed a forcing bid, something nobody else in the field would have done. I lead the queen of clubs, and she tables

Axx
Axx
Jxxx
Axx.

We all thought "what a strange thing to do!" while she said something like "I just didn't like my hand." Now the fun begins. Dave ruffs it. It doesn't take him long to figure out why I hadn't led his suit, so he led a spade which I ruffed. We took the first 4 tricks with our Kx and Qx of hearts, and declarer soon claimed the rest. Now came the coup de grace. One of the opponents said "We came out smelling like a rose on this one!" Another hand, another zero.