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A Heart too many?

Below is the type of hand familiar to most bridge players, fairly routine shape and very, very few high card points. So, such familiarity should make deciding your next bid below quite straightforward:

 

2 and 2 are what they appear to be. Yes, your partner has a very good hand with at least 5 hearts. So, what next?

This board occurred very early on in last week-end’s Inter-Provincials. For most North players, their second bid was a very fast 4 as there was nothing very special about their hand, or so they thought! 4 usually ended the bidding which meant a flat board or worse would happen if South decided to have a shot at the heart slam:

 

Unless West was obliging enough to lead away from the K (and when declarer is so strong and dummy hugely weak, it rarely pays to be so aggressive), 6 has no play. It would fail even if East had Qxx. Not the worst slam ever you might say, as there days when the Q would be doubleton but by no means the best slam to play on the above cards. How to get South to show their second suit when North will use fast arrival in their major? Were North to value their queen and jacks a little higher and respond 3, then South may well try for slam. If you are going to bid 6, why not bid 6 on the way? On a few days, your partner will have three small hearts and five clubs. Today’s the day!

A couple of Precision pairs did reach 6, once where North responded to a take-out double with 2. Hearts had never been bid and South bid 6 very quickly. However, the only pair playing a natural system who reached 6 were Steve Boughey and Matt Brown from the winning Auckland-Northland Open Team.

Steve, South, opened 2 and the next two bids were as normal. However, 2 requested his partner to bid 2 allowing opener to describe his hand better at a lower level. Steve’s next bid was 3 and Matt gave a slightly encouraging 3. Now, Steve did well to offer his partner a choice of slams, allowing Matt to pass 6.

Well bid and as long as South was declarer, 6 was unbeatable. It is ironic that if North had one less heart, many more pairs may have reached the club slam. Had that extra card been a spade, or a club, or there was a 3-3 heart break, then, even grand slam would be makeable.

Not this day, though. That principle of fast arrival worked against South moving above 4. If you did take a chance on slam, then make sure you offer a choice to partner if you have an undisclosed 5-card suit. Well earnt imps in this time for Steve and Matt and our two Precision pairs.

Richard Solomon

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