Three Slams

Most of my partners know that I am relatively aggressive at bidding slams, and playing with a very good partner (but one whom I have only played twice with before) in Charlottesville recently, I (North) had a chance to bid and make three slams.   It didn't quite happen that way.

#1.  On our fourth board of the day, I picked up this hand in third chair after partner opened 1Heart.  I did nothing out of the ordinary here, other than perhaps make a slightly aggressive 2/1 game forcing response of 2D. (This bid may not have worked out too well if partner opened a flattish 12-count or an 11-count with six hearts.)

852
3
AQJ86
AJ32

The auction was brief:  1H-2D-3D-3NT-6D.

The opponents led a spade; I tried the trump finesse, which lost, but diamonds split (if they didn't I can still make the contract if hearts are 4-3) and I was subsequently able to throw one club loser on dummy's hearts and ruff two other clubs.  Partner gets all the credit for bidding the slam.  Only two pairs out of 17 did so.

Board 23 Dlr: S Vul: All	852 3 AQJ86 AJ32
J73 Q94 43 KQ987		T964 JT62 K9 T64
	AKQ AK875 T752 5

#2.  A few rounds later partner opened 1 Spade, and I held this wonderful hand:

KT62
KQ53
AK74
7

We certainly have a game here, and very well could have a slam. I have three possible bids:  Jacoby 2NT, Splinter, or a game-forcing bid of 2D or 2H.

I quickly rule out 2D or 2H.  While I do sometimes make 2/1 game forcing responses when only holding four cards in a suit, that is usually because I don't have some other more descriptive bid available, which is not the case here.   If I bid 2NT, partner will immediately let me know whether he has a short suit (by bidding that suit at the three level), another 5-card suit (bidding it at the four level), or his general hand strength (4S, 3NT, 3S will show increasingly stronger hands).  Depending on what partner bids, this could be very helpful information, but I decide to tell partner about my hand instead.  By bidding 4C immediately, he knows I have game forcing values and shortness in clubs.   After my 4C bid, though, partner signs off in 4S, and I mistakenly pass.

I say 'mistakenly' not just because 6S turns out to be a great contract but because my hand is worth another shot even after partner signs off.  One of the club experts said it best afterwards: "Splinters should be used only with a 10-12 point hand, or with a hand that is strong enough to explore slam even if partner signs off."  This makes a lot of sense, as the other hands are better suited for Jacoby.  Playing it this way, if I splinter and make another bid over partner's ostensible sign off bid of 4S, he knows I have a very good hand (probably 18+ playing points, which my hand had). 

So, it would not have hurt me to use Blackwood over his 4S bid.  If he had 3 keycards or his actual holding of 2 Aces with the Queen of trump, then I bid the slam.  If not, I have enough strength that we should be safe in 5 spades.

Board 2 Dlr: E Vul: N-S	KT62 KQ53 AK74 7
87 J9 Q652 AT983		J9 T742 83 KJ654
	AQ543 A86 JT9 Q2

So, we missed this excellent slam of 6S, though it was only bid and made by three other pairs.  Four pairs went down in 6 Spades, somehow.  They must not have saved a small trump in dummy in order to reach their hand to try the diamond finesse after hearts didn't split.

#3.  This is the one I really botched.

QJ32
AK962
T
AQ8

Partner opened 1D and I responded 1H.  Partner now bid 1NT, showing a minimum hand.  Now, contrary to what some think, this does not necessarily deny four spades.  Partner could have four spades with a balanced hand, and wants to tell me that as soon as possible.  If he were unbalanced (say with five diamonds and four spades, then he would indeed bid 1S here).

My choices are to reverse into 2S, which would be a game forcing bid, or bide my time with a New Minor Forcing bid of 2C (forcing for one round).  In the latter case, partner would show me his 3-card support for hearts if he has it.  Partner knows that if I am 4-4 in the majors, then I would revert to NT and should then realize that if I didn't care about his 3-card heart support, then I must have had four spades, and he could then bid 3S...  However, there are a couple of problems with this.  First of all, it is almost always better to play in a 4-4 fit than a 5-3 fit, and if partner actually has three hearts opposite my five hearts, I don't want to risk him passing my 2NT rebid (with a minimum hand) when we could actually have a double fit in the majors.  Even more importantly, my hand is strong enough to force game and I should let partner know about that right away.  A 2S bid will show five hearts and four spades with at least 13 HCP.

So, I bid 2S and partner jumps to 4S.  This is a signoff bid.  Partner is showing a hand that is either 4-2-4-3 or 4-3-4-2, with probably at most 13 HCP.  His initial rebid of NT limited his opening to a minimum and the jump to 4S says he has a minimum minimum, really.

Not to be deterred, I pressed on with Blackwood and when I found out he had two keycards, I bid 6S.

Board 6 Dlr: E Vul: E-W	QJ32 AK962 T AQ8
K8 875 983 JT742		T76 J4 K6542 K96
	A954 QT3 AQJ7 53

 The opponents lead the Jack of Hearts, which sure looks like a singleton.  Accordingly, I win in hand and play a small spade to the Ace and then a small one back to hand.  This will keep the opponents from getting a heart ruff when East only has two trumps and West has the spade King.  Evenso, finessing for the spade King isn't likely to work anyway, as even if East did have the King I would still lose a trump trick to the Ten, unless East specifically held doubleton KT.

Well, West jumps up with the Spade King on the second round and does not return a heart!  This is good news.  It means that either he has the third trump himself or has not worked out that the Heart Jack was singleton.  Rather West returned a small club.  Now, I am not taking this finesse...I doubt West is giving me a free one.  So, I take the Ace.

So far so good.  I'd rather not talk about the rest of the hand in detail.   I drew trumps, ran the hearts pitching a club from dummy and came down to this, with the lead in North.

2

T
Q8

4

AQJ

I need to find the King of Diamonds and can take the normal finesse or a ruffing finesse.  I lead the Ten of Diamonds and despite a slight hesitation from East play the Ace and lead back the Queen. Wrong!

Now, why did I say I butchered the hand, if it came down to a guess for the Diamond King?  Well, as partner pointed out afterwards, West had nonchalantly tossed two diamonds earlier, seeming to not have a care in the world; she did not seem to be concerned about having to protect her King of Diamonds.  Also, I should have taken advantage of East's hesitation when I led the Diamond Ten.  At the time, I thought "No one ever hesitates when actually holding the King...you put it on the table as fast as possible! He must be trying to deceive me."  But, if this were the case, I probably could have called the director later for illegal hesitation.

Surprisingly we still scored 25% of the matchpoints.  Several pairs were in the hopeless 6H contract.  Several others went down in 6S, though it is likely that they played the spades wrong or lost the club finesse.  I doubt anyone tried diamonds the way I did!