Saturday, December 22, 2007

Bid this slam!

It is no secret that my preferred bidding system is precision. Various partners have helped me iron out the kinks in our system over the years, but most of the time the strong club bid proves itself the winner without any of the fancy bidding tools that are options in precision. The following hand propelled my partner and I to a 60% matchpoint game the week before I left the US.

North (Don):

A
Jxxx
xxx
AKxxx

South (Me, Dealer):

xx
AQx
AKQTx
J9x

The bidding:
1C*(1) - 2C*(2)
2D*(3) - 3D*(4)
3H*(5) - 4H*(6)
5D*(7) - 6D*(8)

1 - Strong club: 16+ pts, any distribution
2 - 8+ pts, 5 carder club
3 - 5 carder diamond
4 - Choosing to show diamond support rather than the ragged heart suit (still time to find a heart fit)
5 - No spade stopper, wanting to play 3NT from the other end
6 - Showing 4 carder heart: 1435 distribution now known
7 - No 4 card heart, no extras for a minor suit slam, no ruffs in hand so no point showing club support
8 - Knowing none of my 16+ pts are in spades, visualizing my small spade(s) getting ruffed in dummy.

Nothing much to the play, ruff a spade in dummy and give up a club early. You need diamonds to be 3-2 and a reasonable lay of the club suit. This hand would have made a bigger difference in an IMP game. Playing precision you rarely miss out on the 5-3 and 4-4 minor suit slams and your ability to bid major suit slams is unaffected. Now that I am in Chennai I will bug you guys to learn precision until one of you does :)


Cheers
Prashanth.

2 comments:

Ashok said...

It seems to me more an issue with the 1NT range. If you play the weak notrump, you can bid the hand thus: 1D-2C(1)-2D(2)-2H-2NT(3)-3D(4)-3H(5)-4C(6)-4H(7)-5C(8)-6D

(1) 2/1 GF
(2) Mandatory to show 5+ diamonds
(3) 15–17 HCP, balanced hand, supposed to be with a spade stopper
(4) Obvious, with the unbalanced hand
(5) 3-card support
(6) Hand just about worth a cue-bid
(7) Kickback Blackwood, (i) liking 3-card support for partner's known 5-card club suit, which almost surely includes two of the top three honours, and (ii) honours seem to be fitting well.
(8) 2/5 keycards without the queen of trumps

Actually, the slam is fair only. The chances of two suits breaking 3-2 each are about 47 %. All things considered, the slam is about fifty-fifty, it seems to me.

Anonymous said...

this slam can be bid using repeat stayman (2C followed by 3C by 1NT responder is repeat stayman. It should be used only with GF hands and atleast hand worth a slam try. It asks for the distribution of 1NT opener's hand.
Bidding :
1NT-2C
2D-3C[1]
3D[2]-3H[3]
3NT[4]-4D[5]
4H[6]-4S[7]
4NT-5H
6D-p-p-p

1=repeat stayman
2=5 card minor
3=asking which minor
4=Higher ranking minor
5=3+ card support
6,7=cuebids

If North has Heart A instead of Spade A, then this slam can be bid differently:
1NT-2S[1]
2NT[2]-3C[3]
3D[4]-3H[5]
4D[6]-5D[7]
6D-p-p-p
1=GF hand (both minors or minor longer then major)
2=relay
3C=5+ clubs
3D=asking for other suit
3H=4+ Hearts
4D=5 carder D
5D=3+ cards support