Under Control

4^th July – Board 12: North/South Vul. Dealer West.

It is exciting to have good hands when partner opens but you have to be careful not to get too carried away and must always make sure that things remain under control.

	North: S 9 8 6 3 H K 2 D A K Q J 7 2 C J
West: S A J 7 H 7 5 4 3 D 10 9 5 4 3 C 9		East: S K Q 5 4 2 H A 10 9 8 D 8 6 C 10 8
	South: S 10 H Q J 6 D none C A K Q 7 6 5 4 3 2

West	North	East	South
No	1D	1S	3C
No	3D	No	4C
No	5C	End

3C is game forcing but when opener rebids his suit you should realise that the hand has to be played in clubs making a simple 4C bid suffice. This unequivocally sets the suit and if North had either major suit ace he should cue-bid whichever ace he had and failing that he just raises to game. Now responder knows that two aces are missing and has an easy pass. Note that 4NT at any time by the responding hand would be a mistake as a one key-card response will take you too high. The defence to 5C is easy to find. West will presumably lead the ace of spades and knowing that declarer has a singleton in that suit will switch to a heart.

All The Way

2nd May – Board 16: East/West Vul. Dealer West.

Did you all bid the grand slam on board 16? I know Tony and Chris did and thought they had a good sequence.

	North: S 7 H K J 10 4 3 D K 9 C A K Q J 2
West: S J 6 4 3 H Q 8 6 D 10 5 2 C 9 5 3		East: S 10 8 5 H 7 5 2 D J 8 4 C 10 7 6 4
	South: S A K Q 9 2 H A 9 D A Q 7 6 3 C 8

West	North	East	South
No	1H	No	1S
No	3C	No	4NT
No	5S	No	5NT
No	6H	No	7NT
End

South did well not to force with 2S originally because you should never force with a two-suiter, but North is just about worth a game force of 3C. 4NT ostensibly agrees clubs and the response shows the top three honours. 5NT asks for any extra kings and 6H shows both red kings. All those known points just comes to 15 and North must hold two or three more for his 3C bid so South could bid 7NT with a fair degree of confidence. Grand slams are seldom easy to bid because there is so much at stake if they go wrong so full marks if you went all the way.

Making It Up

24th Jan – Board 13: Game All. Dealer North.
Not all hands belong to a definite category and when that happens you have to let your imagination take a turn. Look at that South hand. After partner bids and rebids diamonds you want to make a bid that is either game itself or is, at the very least, forcing.

I know of several players who bid 3♣ at their second turn but that is wrong for the simple fact that it is not forcing. That being so you have to make something up and while just a simple leap to 3NT has some appeal it might be more delicate to introduce a fictitious suit and hope for the best. North now might bid 3NT but should probably prefer to look for an independent heart stop by bidding the suit and when South fails to comply simply raise to game in clubs. Indeed 6♣ is not a bad contract while 3NT is obviously laydown.

Clever Clogs

6^th Dec – Board 14: Love All. Dealer East.

It is important I think to make a 2NT rebid after partner has responded in a new suit at the two-level as game forcing. The reason behind this being that responder can now show three-card support for opener’s first suit if he so wishes and still be in a forcing situation.

With his completely balanced hand North should eschew any possible 5-3 heart fit and go for the no-trump game instead which has the merit of having nine tricks on top. However some pairs arrived in 4♥ and that needs a certain amount of luck to make. With no chance of making an extra trick in either diamonds or spades declarer should aim to make a second club trick and the correct way to do this would be to lead a club to the nine, hoping to draw either the king or queen from East. Then a subsequent finesse of the jack will provide the extra trick assuming West holds the other big honour. I think the chances of this line working are about 37.5% making the heart game very inferior to 3NT. But can you see that a clever clogs sitting West has a chance to shine? When a low club is led from the South hand supposing West plays the queen! Might not declarer now think that West holds both the queen and the king and later play small to the jack?

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.

Under Control

22nd March – Board 11: Love All. Dealer South.

It would seem hard to imagine any route which would not take you to a grand slam on the hand shown below but as is the way of things it all seemed much harder at the table than away from it.

West	North	East	South
			1C
No	2D	No	3C
No	4NT	No	5C
No	7C	End

The initial 2D response is game forcing of course and when opener rebids his suit this shows at least a six-carder. Why? Well with another four-card suit he would bid it and with a balanced 3-3-2-5 hand he would either have opened 1NT or be rebidding it. After wheeling out the Old Black North knows – should know – that all the key cards are present, for South would have an eight count at most if he had none! So North can now count twelve tricks even if South had no other useful card, which is why I favour 7C over 7NT. Just suppose opener had

Now 7NT is a trick short but 7C can be made by ruffing out the diamonds and establishing another trick there. However playing match-pointed pairs I would go for the higher score.

Off To The Races

15th March – Board 7: Game All. Dealer South.

The concept of the reverse is not really so difficult to understand yet there still does seem to be some confusion. What must be understood is that while a reverse shows a strong hand you do not go out of your way to bid your suits the wrong way round just so that you have reversed and therefore shown strength, because you can always do that in a more legitimate way. Take the hand below for example:

West	North	East	South
			1H
No	3H	No	3S
No	4D	No	4S
No	5D	No	6H
End

South has a good hand but should not fall into the trap of opening 1C in order to reverse. Just open 1H and failing support from partner make a jump rebid of 3C over 1S or 1NT and a high-card reverse of 3C over 2D. What is more all these bids would be game forcing. However when partner obligingly supports hearts it’s off to the races with a series of cue-bids. Pointless of South to bid 4NT of course after partner has shown diamond control because all that is required is for partner to have the king of clubs and the queen of hearts for the grand slam to be odds on. So give partner the chance to bid 5C over 4S to show second round control and when this is not forthcoming just settle on the small slam. Even though there is a possible trump loser the fact that the king of clubs is onside means that there is very little to the play.

Over Optimistic

15^th September – Board 16: East/West Game. Dealer West.

Like losing a tennis match when your opponent has a winning net-cord at match point it is infuriating when the opponents at the bridge table earn a huge swing due to the vagaries of Lady Luck. At least three pairs reached a grand slam in diamonds on the hand shown below, a contract with a chance of success somewhat less then 20% instead of the near 70% required. The main fault lay with the choice of opening bid, and while I appreciate that the West hand is a three-loser that is only a good thing if a fit is found. Imagine a hand opposite with a void diamond and a small doubleton club and you will see what I mean. I think the auction might go something like:

West	North	East	South
1D	No	1H	No
2C	No	2S	No
4D	No	4H	No
5C	No	6D	End

2S is fourth-suit forcing of course and 4D sets up a game-forcing sequence. East should not get over-excited because good as his long suits are they are not going to be useful in getting rid of any trump loser! The play in 7D is not a problem; win the opening lead and play ace and a low club to ruff on table. With the fall of the club king all that is now required is to hope for the favourable trump position and when that occurs to try not to gloat.

Supporting Partner

3^rd February – Board 19: E/W Game. Dealer South.

If anyone bid a slam on the hand shown above then well done, but I know it was missed at several tables where West refused to support his partner’s long suit. Indeed that East hand is nowhere near as powerful facing a only doubleton heart and although I really do sympathise with West’s lack of ambition I think it is misplaced, because aces and kings lend themselves very well to a suit contract. So I think the bidding should go:-

West	North	East	South
			No
1NT	No	2D	No
2H	No	3D	No
3H	No	3S	No
4C	No	4D	No
4 S	No	6H	End

I am a strong believer that when a responder to 1NT bids two suits then game has to be reached, so in the above sequence 3D is game forcing. West can/should support hearts, and now an exchange of cue-bids should enable the slam to be reached. Even with the poor heart break the slam is cast-iron needing as it does only a successful finesse in just one of the red suits.