August 1-12 Super Club Championships - triple points for no extra charge!

August 7 Bobbie Gomer Club Challenge - lunch provided at 11:45 a.m. There is still time to sign up.

August 13 Robot Individual - quick online game.

August 15-19 STaC Week - earn extra silver points!

August 22-September 2 NAP Qualifying - last chance to qualify at the club for the North American Pairs.

September 5 Save the Date - holiday bridge and lunch.

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Our players are finding their way back to the bridge club, and for that we are truly grateful! Bearing that in mind, our Education Committee has a fine program starting in the Fall. Super teacher John Dickenson will give a four-session package on Defensive Carding geared toward intermediate players. Tap on this link for a flyer with all the details. John is very entertaining, so be sure to share the information with your bridge buddies.

We update our Facebook page regularly so be sure to check it out. It’s a great way to stay in touch with all the happenings at North Penn.

In my Deal of the Week article of June 21, 2022, I proclaimed myself a student in the Marty Bergen school of hand evaluation. Among his many other accomplishments, Marty pioneered creative advances in slam bidding. In fact, he authored a long–running series of articles on the subject in the Bridge Bulletin, all under his signature column Better Bridge with Bergen. Over the years, I have downloaded the entire Bridge Bulletin public domain digital archive and extracted hundreds of articles for my own studies. Since this week’s Deal (spoiler) is all about finding the right slam, I am making three of Marty’s extracted slam bidding series available here. Click the links to download the documents. Some of the topics are discussed more than once, in varying degrees of exhaustive detail:

Our Deal occurred in a recent 5–table Howell movement at a local F2F game:

Upon inspection, 7NT is a laydown against any lead: three spades, three hearts, five diamonds, and two clubs. But how best to get there? Before discussing the auction(s), and there are multiple paths, let’s examine the results. Two N/S pairs got to 6NT making seven for +1020, two got to 6♦ making seven for +940, and one pair stopped in 3NT making seven for +520 (we are told they were victims of a psych overcall).

At our table, South opened 2♣, and it is worth examining this choice. Even if the diamonds produce five tricks, there are only 7½ running tricks, and one is commonly advised to have 8½ or more. The rest of the requirements are well satisfied, as the hand has 5½ quick tricks and just three losers. But with such a 19 HCP holding, there is a finite risk that if opener starts with 1♦, the auction might get out of hand or passed out before it gets back to her. Still, at least one experienced player and teacher strongly suggests that a two– or three–suiter should not be opened 2♣ unless game is in hand.

Now, North had been happily anticipating two passes and a 1NT opening in third seat when he heard the unlikely good news from across the table. With 16 HCP opposite a strong 2♣ opener, he was thinking Grand Slam from the start. He temporized with 2♦ waiting to give opener the opportunity to describe her hand. We should note that a 2♥ response showing 8+ HCP and a good 5–card suit would have been more descriptive and would not have limited the responding hand. As the cards lie, neither would it have altered the outcome.

Upon hearing the 3♦ rebid, North paused to consider, “How high and in what strain?”. With four running tricks of his own, the only thing that seemed to matter was the number of combined keycards, so he initiated RKCB for diamonds with a 4NT call.

Unfortunately, the void showing responses used here are not keycard showing responses, and North could not determine if South held the diamond king. If South’s opener was based on extreme distribution, it was barely possible they were off at least one keycard, maybe two! And where was the void?? If it were in hearts or clubs, there might be two quick spade losers. But it was too late to worry about that, as they now were committed to slam. Thinking notrump too risky, he settled for the small diamond slam. He was getting ready to lay down his hand as dummy when Pard and both opponents simultaneously reminded him he was declarer via 2♦ waiting over 2♣. On receiving East’s lead of the stiff ♠8, he did then lay down his hand and announced the hand was a laydown indeed.

Another thing – in a previous article (November 23, 2011) I described the use of “kickback” as a keycard ask. There, Scooby Doo found himself up Slam Creek without a paddle and off two aces in a small heart slam. The problem was that Shaggy had showed two keycards with the queen of trump. Alas, Scooby had only one keycard himself. There, using 4♠ as the kickback ask would have allowed Scooby to sign off below slam.

In this week’s Deal, diamonds were trumps at two tables. In any suit below spades, using 4NT as the keycard ask introduces an element of risk, as any response above the trump suit commits one to slam, making or not. Using 4♥ as the kickback ask for diamonds, a 4^th step response of 5♦ may be passed if the asker has just one keycard.

We note that in most treatments, the kickback suit is not used as an ask if that suit has previously been bid naturally. So, if North had first responded a natural 2♥ to the 2♣ opening, a subsequent rebid of 4♥ would also have been natural. Then 4NT would have had to be used as the keycard ask, returning the auction back to the future, so to speak.