On the Way

Playing in the North American Open Pairs with a competent partner against decent opposition, I deal myself vulnerable against not this promising collection:

AKQ864

1083

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K1042 We are playing five-card majors and Two-over-One game force. This rates to be a good hand for our system, so I am feeling encouraged when I open 1

. LHO passes and partner bids 2

, game forcing, which I like a lot. I am about to make a splinter jump when I hear an overcall of 2NT, showing length in the red suits. Not to be deterred, I choose to jump to 4

, showing my club support and diamond shortness. LHO can get in this and does by raising my diamonds to five. Partner thinks about this a bit, but comes up with the bid I want to hear: 5

. Good partner!

I am about to bid the Grand Slam Force because 7 will be cold opposite as little as xx Axx xxx AQJxx and partner must have more than that for his game force. On my way to seven, however, RHO bids 6, making me guess about partner's club holding. I think it is really no guess; partner made a grand slam try when he bid 5, since we were by then committed to 6, so he must have the top clubs. I bid 7, hoping strenuously that the opponents do not sacrifice.

7 is passed around to RHO who gives this quite a bit of thought, as well he might, and finally decides to trust us and saves in 7. How unfortunate. Before I double this, I give some thought to 7. 13 tricks are obvious at clubs, but I only see six spades, one heart, and five clubs at spades. If partner holds the K or a sixth club and Jx or three little spades, we can make 7, too, which has to be better than defending diamonds. How can I tell if he has this stuff? I am pretty confident about the 13th winner, but I cannot tell if spades are good enough to play at the seven-level; certainly partner could have a singleton, in which case 7 is a very bad bet. How can I tell? I cannot, but fortunately, partner is still in the game. I choose to pass, which is clearly forcing, and must suggest some higher contract. 7NT seems very unlikely given that I am probably void in diamonds, so the contract I must be considering is 7. 7 goes around to partner who considers for a little while and finally doubles. This gets passed out and we collect 500, less than our game, so we are happy to find that we get an average score when several pairs are allowed to play diamonds at a lower level.

The final forcing pass was an unusual one in that normally, forcing passes at the seven level are intended to suggest bidding a grand after they have saved against our small slam. This one was suggesting a conversion to a higher-ranking suit, which had never occurred to me before.

Partner held 10x AJx Qxx AQJxx. He certainly had his bidding shoes on, but 7 is an excellent contract, and today had the benefit of being cold. His decision to double rather than bid 7 was a good one because he had no extra winner and no real help in spades. Thank you, partner.