20th September – Board 7: Game All. Dealer
South.
Normally you need about 33
points between the two combined hands for 6NT to stand a sporting chance but
that assumes that both hands are flat. As a corollary to that any decent five
card suit makes all the difference in the world, as can be seen demonstrated in
the hand below.
South shows a balanced hand of about 15/16 points and in the first instance North bids 3
♥ to check whether the opener has a five-card suit there. However after the 3NT response North is worth one more go because of that good five-card suit. 4NT is not Blackwood of course because no suit has been agreed but merely quantitative and South should take up the slack with his fine array of controls. Notice that if North had a diamond less and a club more (say) then 6NT would be an awful contract needing both diamonds to break 3-3 and the spade finesse to be right, odds of just 18%. However with the hand as it stands declarer just needs to make five diamond tricks after a club lead to fulfil his contract, the odds this time being around 70%. For those playing a strong no-trump North would bid 4NT after the opening with the same happy result.
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