A Thin Slam

Playing in a national pair event with a capable partner, I pick up  S:KQJ72 H:AQ6 D:9543 C:Q. I deal and open 1S:. Partner responds 2C:, and I make the obvious 2D: rebid. Partner rebids 2S:, which we play game forcing, so I bid 2NT to show and protect my heart stoppers in case we end up in notrump. Partner jumps to 4H:. That's not the splinter I want to hear, so I sign off in 4S:. Partner carries on nonetheless, and to his 4NT inquiry I admit to two key cards and the S:Q, after which he puts us in 6S:. Curious bidding on his part: if he was going to drive to slam anyway, what was the point of splintering first?

"Curious" seems too kind. LHO leads the D:A, and it appears as if partner has lost his mind.

S: A104
H: 3
D: KQ10
C: A108653
S: KQJ72
H: AQ6
D: 9543
C: Q
MeMadman
1S:2C:
2D:2S:
2NT4H:
4S:4NT
5S:6S:
Pass
I guess he's a little surprised that I'd bid such a bad diamond suit, but I had no reason to believe that this was going to be a slam auction, and a 2NT rebid suggests a second club. Not to mention a diamond stopper. Maybe I ought to have rebid 2S:?

RHO discourages diamonds at trick one, so LHO shifts to the C:9. That's good; if he were to continue diamonds, I don't think I'd like it.

I start off with five spades, one heart, two diamonds, and a club for nine tricks. I could ruff a couple of hearts in dummy or take the heart finesse, but that'll give me a maximum of 11 tricks unless diamonds are 3-3. I think they are more likely to be 5-1 than 3-3, so that means I need to make something of the clubs. If they are 3-3 and trumps break, I'll have 12 easy tricks, but I'll need to manage my entries carefully. So I win the club in dummy and ruff one with the S:7. Both follow. If trumps are 4-1, I'm going to have to settle for down one, so I cash a high trump and play my low trump to dummy's S:10. Both follow. That's good. Ruff another club...but RHO shows out. Heh...LHO shifted to a club from K942...Grosvenored again. I no longer have any options in the play; this is going to have to be a dummy reversal. I need two diamond entries to the table, so it looks like I need diamonds to be 1-5 and RHO to have the last trump. Since there's nothing I can do about it if that's not the case, I soldier on. Ruff the club high, play a diamond. LHO shows out, pitching a heart. That's very good...looks I am making. I ruff the last club high, cross to the last diamond, draw trump with dummy's stiff S:A, and claim.

Diamonds were 1-5 all the time, so they couldn't beat me...very lucky! The whole hand was:

S: A104
H: 3
D: KQ10
C: A108653
S: 65
H: K109852
D: A
C: K942
S: 983
H: J74
D: J8762
C: J7
S: KQJ72
H: AQ6
D: 9543
C: Q
While the play looked spectacular, this really was a simple hand to play. A count of my tricks indicated that I had to set up the clubs, and when they broke 4-2, a dummy reversal was necessary. I was lucky diamonds were 1-5, or RHO could have pitched two diamonds on clubs and ruffed my final dummy entry. If I only needed one diamond entry, I could have tried using it early if I judged diamonds were 2-4, but since I needed two, I had no choice but to hope diamonds were 1-5 or RHO made an error.
Copyright © 2006 Jeff Goldsmith