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    Now is the hour.

Are you fed up with defending 1NT or 2H? You always seem to make the wrong lead or partner has the wrong cards! Well, here is something a little different for you.

 

A modest 1 start for such a potentially powerful hand has allowed South to make a Weak Jump Overcall and then your partner to make a forcing 3 bid. What next?

I must be in very good humour because I will not even advocate one of my favourite conventions, the Multi 2, as a nice way to start the bidding, here showing the least used strong minor option. Even I might admit that starting with 1 might be better because we know that someone will find a bid, even if it is not your partner. It may help you to know how much you want to bid should the opponents bid aggressively, probably in spades. (I would not mind opening 2 Multi as East but alas, it was the North cards I held!)

The fact that only one pair found the optimum spot suggests that the simple and effective next bid found by East, Jack James, at our table was not universal: an understatement!

In fact, there was a choice of two bids which East could make which would be equally effective.

Firstly, if your partner cannot produce one of the two top honours in the suit they have bid freely at the 3-level, then you can write this off as a somewhat unlucky board. It is true your partner could hold also K8752 leaving 6 or even 6 as difficult slams to make. Surely, we must be more optimistic than that?

So, wheel out one of those two conventions which have been locked away in your “convention cellar” for years.

5NT Grand Slam Force  With first-round control of the black suits and oodles of diamond tricks, your level is dependent on partner’s top hearts. That specifically is what Grand Slam Force 5NT asks. You should have one of the top three to do the asking (you do). There are a few versions of the responses but with two out of AKQ, your partner will reply with a bid of the trump suit, the last bid suit, at the 7-level.

Jack took the other road to find the same information:

Exclusion Key Card Blackwood  This must be an unusual jump, usually a double jump, in a suit which cannot be the trump suit. If there is any doubt about whether the bid might be natural or maybe has any other meaning, then it is best not to use it. Playing in a high-level contract with a total of 3 or 4 trumps between your two hands is no-one’s idea of fun! However, take a look at the sequence below:

 

  Even if there had been no spade interference, the jump to 5 had to be unusual and unnatural. 4 could be construed as a splinter but not 5. It asked the question: “tell me about your key cards partner but I do not want to know (“exclusion”) about the A.”

One’s responses can be the same as normal Key Card with 6 here showing 2 but no Q. Well, there was only one of those in the pack and that was in Jack’s hand!
They were playing Pairs and therefore Jack chose the higher scoring grand. Playing Teams, he may well have bid 7 as there was from his point of view the danger of one opponent holding JTxx. Not today and they were well-rewarded with a 100% score. Well, nearly!

One other pair did reach grand-slam but a Suction auction rather back-fired on their North-South opponents. After a Precision 1 opening and interference by South showing spades or the minors, East leapt to 6 following their partner's strength- showing double. West, with extras went the whole way and tried 7NT, anticipating that a spade would not be led since it sounded as though he, West, held A or AQ. North knew by the 6 bid that their partner held spades but their double by no means said “lead a spade”. Indeed, it sounded like East could have been and of course was void in spades thus giving declarer an extra trick on the lead. North guessed wrong  and the result was 2470 to a very relieved East-West pair.

The above deal contributed to Jack and Jeremy's 68.40% second 
session in the Waikato- Bays Provincial Pairs last weekend, and to 
5th overall. Tauranga President Kate Terry presents them with their prizes. 

Not a good East-West auction though this was “the hour” for one of the two conventions mentioned above. If only others had followed Jeremy and Jack’s example!

Lower level problems.

Back to your normal hand type:

 

Well, you should be experienced in such situations. It’s your bid? It’s Teams.

Richard Solomon

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