Every Reason

1st November – Board 16: East/West Vul. Dealer West.

Some slams are easy to bid and some are hard but as long as you can deal with those in the first category you will be a long-term winner. The hand shown below from Thursday should not have been too testing but in various ways things seemed to get out of control…

The only really technical point to be aware of is that North’s raise to 4♣ is game forcing and by inference looking for a slam. And why wouldn’t he be? Partner is showing at least an eight-loser hand by bidding 2♣ in the first place and with his powerful five-loser hand, rich in controls and with superb trump support, North has every reason to be optimistic. But then so has South! With a hand much better than it might be – an extra trump, a loser less – all that really remains is to check up on key-cards, and when all the main characters are present South can find out about the king of hearts with that 5NT bid. Just imagine that North held that card for a moment instead of the Q and J. Then 7♣ is a virtual spread if declarer has the foresight to ruff a spade loser and a diamond loser in dummy before drawing trumps. As it happens 7♣ is still a reasonable contract, with three ruffs in dummy needed now, but that ten of clubs in dummy is priceless. No convention I’ve ever heard of will let you find out about that.