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Can’t Bid Slam but Can you Make One?

We left you on Friday in a reasonable looking 4S contract. We got to game on a combined 24 high card points and avoided the trap of playing 3NT. We are playing Pairs which means not only do we want to ensure we make our 10 tricks but if we can make overtricks, that would be even better. Can we?

 

They lead Q followed by J. What’s our plan?

Apart from one club loser, our only potential losers appear to be in diamonds. We can count 5 spade tricks, AK and AK which gives us 9 top tricks. The best chance of a 10^th seems to be in ruffing a diamond in dummy. As long as both opponents have at least two diamonds each, we will be sure of our contract…and if the opposition’s diamonds all fall on the first three rounds (that is, the suit breaks 3-3), then we can make some overtricks…making 12 tricks in total.

Yet, that 3-3 break only happens about one third (36%) of the time. A 4-2 break occurs more frequently (48%). So, can we make some overtricks when that happens?

The answer is “yes” as long as we realise that we hold almost all of the middle spade cards with only the 8 missing. We do not need the AKJ to draw trumps. We can draw them with our own QT9 along if necessary, with one of dummy’s high cards. Let’s see the play in action:

 

We ruff the J at trick 2 and then play  AK. Both opponents follow. The diamond break cannot be worse than 4-2.

Back to hand with a heart to the ace and play a third round of diamonds, ruffing with A (we will see in a minute why we preserve SJ). 

If the diamonds did break 3-3, you could draw trumps and claim 12 tricks. As they do not, the safest approach is to play K then J overtaking with the Q in your hand. That is why we ruffed with the A first time. Draw trumps and conede a diamond and you still have one trump left to ruff a club and enjoy the 5th diamond...making 11 tricks. You could leave K on the table just playing J to the queen and then ruff a second diamond. If trumps break 3-2, you will make 122 tricks but a 4-1 trump break would mean you would only make 10 tricks. One approach is riskier. You can either make 11 tricks for sure....or make only 10 when you were aiming for 12!

Another approach is to try setting up hearts but you can only discard two diamonds if hearts break 3-3 (only a third of the time) and will even then have a diamond loser, making at most 11 tricks. So, this line is inferior.

Thus, making a slam with your tiny 6 hcp opposite your partner’s 1 level opener. It is possible though not guaranteed. You must, though, get to the spade game first as was demonstrated on Friday.

Richard Solomon

 

 

 

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