|
East dealt and passed and South opened 1C. Some may have passed this 8 loser 11 count, but this South did not. North responded 1S, South rebid 1NT, and now North bid 2D, New Minor Forcing. Upon learning of an 8 card spade fit, North bid 4NT and South showed 1 or 4 keycards. I was pretty impressed up to this point, but now North fell from grace and bid 5NT. Two kings in the South hand did not compensate for the missing key card and North signed off in 6S. A friendly lead of the diamond ace meant declarer did not have to guess the diamond position and the remaining 12 tricks were won by declarer.
It is not a terrific slam, 50% depending on a guess in diamonds, but I was so impressed that the players involved had bid and made a slam after a pretty darn good auction – South limiting her hand by rebidding 1NT, North invoking NMF and then RKCB, all good stuff.
This same hand had been played in an earlier Open game at KOPBC with a variety of contracts and results. We do not have the auctions recorded but we can say this about the results:
Only one pair bid 6S, presumably South chose to open at that table.
Two pairs stopped in 4S, presumably South passed initially at those tables.
Inexplicably, 3 pairs stopped in 5S. I have seen this before where players fear bidding a slam with only 4 keycards. Holding 4 keys and the trump queen, I am never signing off in 5.
One pair bid a greedy 6NT, which has no play on a heart lead, but of course East will not lead from an honor against 6NT so that pair was lucky.
One pair decided it was a good idea to play 5C at matchpoints and took only 10 of the 12 tricks available. No comment.
John’s Ten Commandments concerning Blackwood (well, seven anyway)
- Thou shalt not bid Blackwood with a void
- Thou shalt not bid Blackwood with two or more quick losers in a suit unbid by your side
- Thou shalt not leapeth to Blackwood unless all you need to know is number of keycards, thou shalt useth the space between 3M and 4NT to learneth more about the partnership assets
- Thou shalt not chicken out at the 5 level on determining our side is off only one key card, for though the meek may inherit the earth, they lose at bridge (tippeth of the hat to Rex Saffer)
- Thou shalt NOT bid 5NT after learning our side is off one key card – even if we have 5 kings (LOL) we can’t bid a grand off an ace or the trump king
- Thou shalt ALWAYS bid 5NT after learning our side possesses all 5 key cards and the queen of trumps – see commandment 7 below
- As responder to Blackwood, thou shalt knoweth that possessing extra undisclosed values, one can leapeth to a grand slam over 5NT
| 
