28th March – Board 10: Game All.
Dealer East.
If I could pick only a
handful of conventions then Splinter Bids would most certainly feature along
with Stayman and Transfers. What is more they are dead easy to use and
recognize.
North:
S 7 6 5 3
H A Q J 5
D K 9 8 7
C 6
|
||
West:
S Q 4
H K 8 7 3
D 10 6 3
C 9 5 4 3
|
East:
S 10 2
H 10 6 2
D Q 5 2
C Q J 10 8 7
|
|
South:
S A K J 9
8
H 9 4
D A J 4
C A K 2
|
West
|
North
|
East
|
South
|
No
|
1S
|
||
No
|
4C
|
No
|
4D
|
No
|
4H
|
No
|
4NT
|
No
|
5D
|
No
|
6S
|
End
|
I
give the bidding as I think it should proceed after South elects to open 1S. Of
course many would show a balanced 20 pointer according to their methods and
then I daresay the 5-4 spade fit would come to light via puppet Stayman and in
due course the slam would be bid. However after a 1S opening North, with his
seven loser distributional hand,
should splinter with 4C and then a simple exchange of cue-bids and RKCB should
be enough to get to the six-level. Easy enough you might think, but the slam
would still be good if South were to be deprived of the club king and then
without this modern-ish gadget perhaps things would not be quite so
straightforward.
Apart from the void / singleton, what does the splinter imply in terms of strength?
ReplyDeleteNick M
Most people play that it shows around 10-11 points because there are so many other ways of showing a good hand in high cards. Jacoby 2NT for example, or a delayed game raise. It's the fact that some slams are good because there are no wasted values in a suit which makes splinters so valuable. Opposite a splinter low cards are the best or Ax(x....) Holdings such as KJx(x....) the worst.
ReplyDelete