All News

Spoilers.

You pick up a nice looking hand and start dreaming about slam possibilities. We all love bidding them and as long as they make, they usually seem to be the main talking point in the post mortem.

When your partner opens 1 and you get to show your long suit (1), you are getting really keen..and it gets even better:

Partner may be minimum but you have a heart fit. Great. Yet, then there is  some disturbing news to come. East bids 4. Your 18- count has become a little less valuable and you start to wonder. Pessimism or doubt sets in. Perhaps it should not but you have seen your partner open some rather miserable 11-counts before. Maybe they are even weaker. We all open a little light at times.

While it is possible that partner has 5 clubs and 4 hearts, 1 only promised 2 clubs. They could have a weak no-trump. The mood of optimism has changed and you, or the opposition, have convinced you that this is not the time to be over-ambitious. You bid 5 and no-one has anything more to add. Un fortunately, within seconds, partner claims two overtricks!

 

Well, you could have tried 4NT and should partner respond with just one ace/key card, you could then sign off..or bid on on the basis that there was every chance of partner having a singleton spade.

While partner did have something akin to a weak no-trump, they did hold a rather good one. They actually held a 6-loser hand which even assuming your 1 response was a 9 loser does mean that they could have up-valued their hand to a 3 response over 1. They did have a very good holding in the enemy suit. Perhaps understandably, they were not keen on their own trump suit.

Look at the doubts, though, the opposition created with their bidding. It would have been nicer had 1 promised a genuine suit but there are pros and cons over the best approach to opening criteria. This deal was a con for the short club approach.

Without any interference, North-South could use cue-bidding or North might use Key Card. Bidding the grand still requires North knowing that their partner has some rather useful clubs. There would not have been any trouble reaching small slam and optimists may have just tried for grand and were not to be disappointed.

What then here?

 

Again, we have pessimism challenging optimism and probably realism will win the day. You just do not know. In those situations, we normally go a little conservative and hope we can make 11 tricks. On this day, we have no trouble making 12.

 

East made us guess. Tomorrow, our partner will not have that valuable K and even 5 might be in doubt.

Compare the above to a slower East approach. The alternative will see East give their opponents too much room. East seemed to look for a spade fit when as long as their partner could produce one trump, hearts would be playale even with a fit in the other major. Do not though give one's opponents this amount of room:

 

East looked for a fit in either major but in doing so allowed North-South to exchange plentiful information. 4 by South was a slam try in diamonds with a heart control and though North was weak in high cards, they could value their K greatly and check for key cards, knowing that they could stop in 5 if the news was not good. 2 key cards with Q was wonderful news and slam was reached.

East-West did have a very cheap sacrifice in 6, down 3 or -500 though they did not have to take it if their opponents stopped in game.

In the second deal, East did not have the “rubbish” hands of the first example. In each case, they could put pressure on their opponents by bidding aggressively as quickly as they could.

Spoilers!

Richard Solomon

Go Back View All News Items