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For Junior, Intermediate and Novice players…and others!

Slam tools.

We all love bidding slams, as long as we then make them! We are, justifiably, a little nervous, maybe more circumspect when it comes to grand slams. One slip or bad break and you get a very poor score.

Maybe you would not be in the position indicated on the deal below but just for a minute, say you are. What would your next bid be as South? You are playing Pairs.

 

 

5 showed one ace and 6 two kings. What now?

The answer may depend on how much of a gambler you are. Your side has all the aces and three kings. If the missing king is K, you should comfortably make 13 tricks in both minor suits, even no-trumps. Yet, if say the K is missing, and partner has 6 diamonds, then you want to be in 6 of a minor, (alas not possible) maybe 6NT.

You have no means of finding out which king is missing. You might gamble a grand slam or opt for the relative safety of 6NT. Yet, it did not have to be so.

Roman Key Card Blackwood

The first improvement is to play Roman Key Card Blackwood, including the trump king and perhaps the queen in the reply. In the above auction, 4NT would ask about the “5 aces” including K.

How would North know which is the trump suit? It is always the last bid suit by the partnership, in this case diamonds. The reply to 4NT above would be 5 which shows 2 of the 5 key cards but no Q. South holds the other 3 key cards and Q.

The next stage would be to ask for kings, but not the trump king as that has been shown or denied in the ace ask. Traditionally, 5NT asks how many of the three side-suit kings the player holds. The answer this time would be “1” but which one? There is a way to find out.

Specific King Ask

That is specific king ask. With K, the responder bids 6. With no kings, they bid 6 of the trump suit. What about 2 or 3 kings? Since the 5NT bidder would not be asking if a key card was missing, if the responder has all 3 kings, they could jump to 7 of the trump suit. 2 kings is more of a problem which is addressed below.

Minorwood

Let’s look at all four hands with a bidding example using “Minorwood”, a version of Blackwood which keeps the responses lower than in using 4NT to ask:

 

Minorwood uses 4 of a minor to ask for keycards. Its critics argue it is sometimes difficult to recognise an ace-ask from a natural invitational or otherwise forcing bid. Certainly, there are times when it is not as clear as it is above. 3 by South after 2 would be non-forcing. The jump to 4 after an initial 2 bid is clearly forcing and therefore can be played as Minorwood.

The 4NT response (as 5 in our Key Card example above) shows 2 key cards but no Q. Now comes the tricky bit. The next non-agreed bid (5 above after 4NT, even though South has bid the suit previously) asks for specific kings. 6 shows only the K. If North had 2 side-suit kings, they would bid 5NT, one advantage of Minorwood over Key Card. Note that for the asker to bid the agreed trump suit is a sign-off.

South can then place the contract in 7NT, knowing North has 6 diamonds (yes, some days, they may have 5 diamonds and a 4 card major) and would hope that one or other of the minors produces lots of tricks. 7 may be a safer contract but, playing Pairs, there is a lure to bid the higher-scoring 7NT.

That “lure” is a little misguided. The deal was played at 91 tables. Only 3 reached grand-slam and only 1 North-South pair played 7NT. So, as is so often the case, any grand slam is a good grand slam! As you can see above, there are 17 tricks available in any of 3 grand slams.

Improvements to your slam bidding

Key Card….a must.

Specific king ask…a good improvement.

Minorwood…a maybe. There is even a way for North to show in their Key Card or Minorwood response that they have extra length in diamonds. We will, though, save that for another day.

There are variations of the above conventions. So, make sure you and your partner are on the same wave-length. If you are, then you will be bidding and making more small and grand slams. How good is that!

Richard Solomon

Note: the above illustrates these conventions as they apply to the deal shown. You should refer to bridge teachers, friends or bridge books for a complete explanation of the conventions. 

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