The Hand In Question
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| South | West | North | East |
|---|---|---|---|
1 | Pass | 2 | Pass |
2 | Pass | 4 | Pass |
4 ! | Pass | 4! | Pass |
| 6 | All Pass |
The Auction
Wow. This one is pretty difficult. Writing this column and trying to work out the best bidding options for North has taken me two hours, and I'm still not certain. Two points: club slams are VERY hard and club slams without obvious fits are almost impossible. If this one was played and did not get to slam (even though the slam is laydown), I would not be surprised.
South:
AK643 10862AK32South picks up 15 points, 5-4 in the majors and opens 1 spade. This hand is not balanced, so opening in NT is out.
West:
QJ2 KJ5 Q8764 75West has 10 points, and a 5 card suit in diamonds, but the diamond suit is too weak to overcall.
North:
1098 A 109 AKQJ1096North is screwed. It's hard to be screwed with such a nice hand, but North has problems. First off, this hand has 17 points. According to standard bidding, with 17-18 points you bid a new suit and then jump or jump shift at your next bid. This is almost always ugly, as it forces you very high before you can start exploring slam, which is likely if open has anything more than a bare minimum.
This is going to be a lot of back and forth when the trump suit has already been decided. First, you do have a fit in spades, but the clubs are good enough that you prefer to be there regardless of partners holding (you have everything above a 9 in your hand). NT is risky with the singleton ace of hearts. (Actually 6NT is laydown on this hand, and 7NT is even possible if you get lucky with the spades, but North has no way of knowing this!)
This first bid by North pretty much dictates the rest of the auction, so we're going to spend a bit of time here. There is only one other true decision to be made later on.
My first thought on seeing this was an immediate jump to 4NT, which would be Blackwood not RKC1430 since no trump suit has been agreed. Figure out how many aces and kings partner has, and then stop in either 5 or 6 as appropriate. In this hand, that's a terrible idea for two reasons. The first problem is the quick losers in both spades and diamonds. You should avoid Blackwood when you have two quick losers in a suit, as the answer doesn't really help you. With two suits? Very unhelpful. The second problem is that you are not deciding grand (7) versus small (6) slam. You are deciding whether to stop at 5 clubs. If you jump to 4NT you are going to get on the high side of 5 clubs really fast. If you say 4NT, you are committing to 6 clubs. In fact, you are not going to be able to use Blackwood or RKC1430 on this hand at all. That hints at control showing cuebids.
There are no common conventional responses available here. I suppose you could just bid 5 clubs. That would certainly be safe, you even have the points for it. You might even settle into 3NT, but that might be risky (something wonky could happen in hearts on a heart lead if South has different cards). Either option is giving up on slam. North wants to try. Their only hope is that South sees the slam and bids it.
North bids 2 clubs, with the intention of jumping in clubs at their next turn.
East:
75 Q9743 J52 843Umm, no. Pass.
South:
AK643 10862AK32North raised to two clubs. A new suit shows 6-18 points. South bids their 4 card major, hearts, showing 5-4 distribution and a 13-16 point hand.
E/W omitted from now on.
North:
1098 A 109 AKQJ1096North jumps in clubs to show 17-18 points; they bid 4 clubs. This is not a splinter bid, as you are rebidding your suit. 4 diamonds would be a splinter, and would agree to South's heart suit.
South:
AK643 10862AK32Groan... North has rebid clubs. First, rebidding a minor shows at least 6 in the minor, and jumping shows 17-18 points. North wants to play this in clubs, and they have a lot of points, hopefully in clubs. South really has no choice except to try and bail to NT. With at least 7 in the suit, clubs it will have to be.
South has 15 points, combined with the 17-18 points of North, they have 32-33 points, which should be enough for a small slam if everything else is right. Furthermore, they have 4 quick tricks, which is encouraging. Assuming North has a nice club suit, the real question is hearts. South decides to try control showing cuebids to determine if North can do anything about the heart losers. South bids 4 diamonds, showing a control in diamonds.
North:
1098 A 109 AKQJ1096North hears diamonds. South cannot possibly want to introduce a new minor at this point, that makes the bid a cuebid, and at this level it had better be a control showing one. North should bid up the line with a control, or return to the trump suit without one. With the singleton ace of hearts, North bids 4 hearts.
South:
AK643 10862AK32North bid hearts! We have at least 5 tricks, plus whatever is in clubs. Hopefully they are nice... South bids 6 clubs. The slam probably isn't 100% from this point of view, but it's probably greater than 50% so, South decides to take the risk.
As an aside, although I'm not overly familiar with it, I believe that some might be 6NT at duplicate matchpoints here as it would grant a better score. Comment below if you have insight into this.
The Play Here's the whole hand again:
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West leads the 7 of spades. North will take 12 tricks: 7 clubs, the A of hearts, the AK of spades, and the AK of diamonds. The only real question is whether they will get an additional spade trick based on the placement of the Q and J. Taking the spade trick with the A, they then pull trump. Given that West overcalled, the finesse (leading the 10 from North and playing the K if East plays the Q or letting it ride if not) will likely fail as West probably has the Q. Best to play for the drop, and just play the K of spades. West plays the J, and that means that the Q is still out there. N/S makes the small slam.
Conclusion
- Club slams are very difficult to bid because you cannot use Blackwood.
- 17-18 point responder hands are challenging
- Control showing cuebids are very helpful when trying to work out slams, particularly in light of the problems with clubs
- AK is a positive sign in a borderline slam hand
- Kenn is stacking the deck in Dark Bridge (HEY! Am not!)
Posts
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ReplyDelete"North hears diamonds. South cannot possibly want to introduce a new minor at this point, that makes the bid a cuebid, and at this level it had better be a control showing one. North should bid up the line with a control, or return to the trump suit without one. With the singleton ace of hearts, North bids 4 hearts."
ReplyDeleteMy question is this - do you still get slam without North's singleton Ace of Hearts?
@Amanda: Fixed typo. As to getting slam without the Ace, it depends a bit on what you mean. If you replace the Ace with a small heart, you probably won't even bid slam since you would have something like 28-29 points for the side (down for 4 for the ace). If you replace the Ace with KQ, I think you still have the slam. KJ is trickier. Aces are your friends. :)
ReplyDeleteOur nanny ate the Bridge hand I saved for the blog, but I will probably still make up something similar and post it. I was wrong about 2NT overcalling. This hand is going to trigger a bit of much needed rewrite of the overcalling section.