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Deal of the Week
by Bucky Sydnor
It's Your Call
One of my favorite columns in ACBL’s monthly Bridge Bulletin is “It’s Your Call” (IYC), and the current editor, Sue Munday, does a fabulous job presenting the panelists’ bidding comments.
I have been reading IYC since I was a non-Life Master. Of course, I did not understand a lot of it as I was still learning how to bid under normal conditions rather than difficult ones, which are the only auctions they consider in IYC. But I learned, nonetheless. I remember one hand had 3 card support for partner’s opening major and only an outside ace. All the panelists voted to give partner a single raise. Ever since reading that, I have done the same.
I have an IYC problem for you. The panelists would find it a cake walk, but I was slow on the uptake. See what you would do.
We are all white, I am in 3rd seat and pick up this very nice 1NT opener, overflowing with controls:
♠A8 ♥A8532 ♦K9 ♣A1082
The spot cards in my heart suit leave a lot to be desired, but the honors are a wonder to behold. Marty Bergen recently extolled the privilege it is, as well as the power, to hold three aces.
As I am enjoying my hand, my partner opens with 1♠--how nice; we’re going to game, at least. I make the normal response of 2♥. My partner tanks. (The opponents are silent throughout.)
This is a normal 2/1 auction and while I wait for my partner, I run through some of her possible second bids like 2♠, 3♠, 3♥, 4♥, and think of what my response could be.
But then my partner bids … 6♥!
I certainly did not consider hearing that from her! What could she possibly hold? I have 3 aces and the king of the fourth suit. How can she jump to 6♥?
So, I began to review some facts. First, my partner is a competent Intermediate bridge player on her way to becoming an Advanced one. So, this bid is not some piece of folly.
Second, she raised me—to understate it!—in hearts, so she almost certainly has at least four, if not five.
Third, she jumped to 6♥; she did not invite a heart slam or go slow. I take that to mean that the power of her hand would be hard or impossible to describe no matter how slowly we bid it.
Fourth, she is missing 3 aces and the king of diamonds, and yet she bid 6♥. She cannot know—and certainly would not be guessing—that I have 3 aces. I did, though, make a 2/1 response to her 1♠, so it would be legitimate for her to place me with one ace. If she only needs 1 ace from me (in one of her suits) and can bid 6♥, then she must have the outstanding ace and something like
♠KQJ10x ♥KQJx ♦Axxx ♣—
Her bid was quite risky. If I had held
♠x ♥A98xx ♦xxx ♣AKJx
we’d be in a very bad contract. But she got lucky; I held the perfect hand for her.
Why am I thinking that she holds the ♠KQJ10x and ♥KQJx? Why can’t she hold, say, the ♠KJ109x(x) and/or ♥KQ10x(x) and still bid 6♥?
Let’s think about the spade suit first. If she holds the ♠KQJ10x, her spade suit is almost certainly a “one loser” suit; all she needs from me for it to be only one loser is two spades and a 4-2 break. Indeed, she could well have ♠KQJ10xx. So, she does not need me to hold the ♠A, even though she seems to be assuming I hold a major suit ace (a weakness of her 6♥ bid). If she only holds ♠KJ109x, she needs me to hold either the ♠A or the ♠Q, or she needs the ♠Q to be onside. That is asking a lot for a jump to 6♥.
Turning to her likely heart holding, let’s look at the possibility that I do hold only one major suit ace and it is the ♠A. Then what does she need for the heart suit to be a one-loser suit? If she holds the ♥KQ10x, I am definitely losing the ♥A. But I may also lose the ♥J if the opponents hold both missing heart honors.
There are several deals when “finding the jack” is the key to making the deal; on this deal, if I do not hold the ♥A or ♥J and she only holds the ♥KQ10x, this would be one of them. Take three different, possible layouts when Dummy and Declarer hold KQ10x opposite 98xxx. The opponents’ hearts could be one of the following three (though there are 16 total possibilities):
KQ104
A) 2-------------------------AJ3
B) J32----------------------A
C) 32-----------------------.AJ
98765
With A) I have 2 heart losers no matter what.
With B) I will lose the first round of hearts, and if I did not finesse the ♥10 on that first round (as I should not), I must finesse it on the second round or LHO will win his J.
With C), however, to hold my heart losers to just one I must not finesse for the ♥J on the second round.
That results in several times where things could easily go wrong. A good bidder would not put their partner in such a situation knowingly. They would have moved more slowly towards slam. So, it is almost certain she has the ♥KQJx or perhaps ♥KQ10xx.
The next question: does she hold the ♦A? I could not imagine that this partner would have bid 6♥ without holding the ♦A. She is just too good a bridge player to do that.
All that leads to the conclusion that she holds something like the following:
♠KQJ10x ♥KQJx ♦Axxx ♣—
Or, more distributional, perhaps
♠KQJ10xx ♥KQ10xx ♦Ax ♣—
After reviewing the above several times in my mind, I finally bid 7♥. LHO leads his ♦J, partner tables a dummy close to what I guessed she had (but without the ♠10). 13 tricks are a laydown. Here’s the full deal:
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