It was disappointing that
no pairs – as far as I know – reached the excellent heart grand slam on the
deal shown below although the ultimate result would have been a gross
injustice.
This really should have been dead easy to bid. 2H shows at least five hearts and 4D is a splinter showing a singleton or void in that suit. With so much more to spare West can hardly do less than cue bid 5C and 5NT asks if West has two of the top three honours – the Josephine convention that we have seen several times before. But after the grand slam has been bid South would/should spring to life by doubling, the so-called Lightner double, asking for an unusual lead and nearly always based on the expectancy of obtaining a first round ruff. North should figure this to be a spade so the contract would die a quick death. Even without the double and with the normal lead of a trump against a grand slam the contract is likely to fail because of the horrific spade break. Sometimes virtue and all that……
"...5NT asks if West has two of the top three honours – the Josephine convention that we have seen several times before"
ReplyDeleteCan you run through what the other responses could be and mean when responding to 5NT. And if he had the 3 top honours (AKQ?) what would the response be then?
7H seems a brave bid to me - he doesn't know that he has a void in Diamonds as it could be a singleton.
S
S
There are several ways that the responses are played but a simple one is to just bid 7 with two of the top three, 6 with none and 6C with just one of the A,K or Q. Then 6D by the 5NT enquirer asks responder to bid seven if he has the ace or king and more than he has already promised. This means you can bid a grand with, for example, Axxx opposite Kxxxxx where the queen is not needed. Here West has shown a five card suit already so six would be more than expected.
ReplyDeleteResponder should never have AKQ because his partner would hardly be good enough to ask about the suit quality but if it did happen he would obviously bid 7. (Or 8!)
7H is not a brave bid because he is just responding to a question. It is true he doesn't know whether his partner has a singleton or void diamond but his partner does and it is his partner who is asking the questions. If it goes wrong blame partner. Has served me well enough!
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