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TALES OF AKARANA
31 POINTS FOR 6H? “NOT TODAY, JOSEPHINE”.
No, we are not referring to the wife of one of the bridge greats, Ely Culbertson, who was no slouch of a player herself. If you read the advice given to beginners, you need at least 31 points in the two hands for a small slam. OK, I know…distribution..no correspondence, please. Yet, slam was attempted with a reasonable degree of success on 8 of our 28 deals this week with the combined point count being:
19, 29, 27, 28, 23, 26, 24, and 28 hcp. Of the 8 slams, 6 were played in 6
. Altogether, slam was bid 17 times with 12 pairs recording a plus score.
We can quickly deal with the only minor suit slam which was one of the failures. With half the room (12 tables) in part-score including the pair’s opponents, it needed no more than any of the three missing trumps (KJ4) on-side, but they were not. Nicely bid but 5 imps out!
6
, once doubled, always made was an iffy affair needing a side-suit to break 2-2 or singleton queen. Played by the safe side, the aggressors were duly rewarded.
On then to the heart slammers. Four pairs bid and made a dubious one where you had a side suit ace to lose and then needed the trump king well-placed. It was very-well placed, singleton on-side, though for any pair using key-card, the knowledge of two missing would have kept them at the 5 level.
The most interesting 6 was the following, attempted by two pairs, with a 50% success rate. Lucky for some is Board 13.
| Board 13 North Deals Both Vul |
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| 6 ♥ by West |
Plan the play on the 
K lead from North. The opposition were silent.
You really do need to dispose of West’s clubs rather quickly. The question is “on what”? The 3-3 diamond break is only 36% though there is the added pleasure that if South ruffed the third round, it might cost them their trump trick. Alternatively, you could always dispose of your remaining club on the third round of spades.
Why not do that anyway? It seems safer, better odds. So, play two top diamonds and three rounds of spades. That just leaves you with the question of how to play trumps for one loser. Playing the queen seems reasonable losing only to KJx in the North hand or Jxx in South. No chance for a double finesse unless you had played three rounds of diamonds leaving spades alone.
One more question, though. Suppose North had opened 1. Choose your line now. Let’s reveal all.
| Board 13 North Deals Both Vul |
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| 6 ♥ by West |
Not a great time to open 1 ,was it? Dispose of the clubs as you choose, ruff a club to hand and lead a low heart. 1430 will be a sweet score.
The K was well placed, along with other defensive honours, for another dubious slam to roll in, for an overtrick on a night when generally fortune favoured the brave. With no slam bid, made or failed to our names, I rather look forward to a night when that K is less well positioned for declarer. I have still got bitter memories of a reasonable 6 slam failing to a 5-0 trump and 6-0 side-suit break.
Maybe I will just have to rewrite the beginners’ book and say that if you play at Akarana, you need something in excess of 22 hcp for slam. I forgot to mention that the 19 pointer had no play.
ps Thanks to Michael Cornell for reporting his partner, Jonathan Westoby’s fine play on Board 17 where the lead was the trump 2. All 4 players contributed with dummy’s 5 winning the trick.
Richard Solomon
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