I was playing with a pick-up partner in a sectional tournament in, if memory serves, Macon, Georgia. In the Open Pairs, my partner and I held these hands:
West A K 8 4 3 K 6 2 K 6 A 10 7 | East10 9 5AA 8 4 2K 9 6 5 3 |
I was West, the dealer. I don’t recall our auction, and I might not reveal it if I did, but we blundered into the double-dummy contract of six clubs. Barring a squeeze or extreme good luck in a black suit, six spades is off a trump and a club. However, in six clubs the losing spade goes on dummy’s king of hearts.
My partner was enthralled and sent the deal to The Bridge World, where it appeared in the magazine’s bidding contest, “Challenge the Champs.” Two expert pairs got nowhere near the club slam — one stopped at five spades, the other at three notrump.
In traveling through your bridge life, you’ll occasionally meet deals in which the best contract looks all but unbiddable. Would you find your way to the heart slam on these cards?
| WestA 8 6 4K Q 10 56 5J 10 4 | East (dealer)K 7 5 2A J 47A K Q 9 3 |
Most pairs would uncover the 4-4 spade fit early and play at spades. They would do well to avoid the hopeless spade slam.
This was a well publicized pair of hands from the 2006 NABC in Dallas.
| WestA K J 310 7 6 4K Q J 3Q | EastQ 10 7 6A K 9 810 4A 7 5 |
| West 1 1 3 4 6 | East 1 2 3 5 |
A heart slam is inferior, but Richard Schwartz and Tarek Sadek maneuvered into six spades, which made. Would you have done as well?
In May I watched an “unbiddable” IMP deal on OKbridge. East- West had a fine nine-card spade fit and only a seven-card club fit, but six clubs was the only makable slam.
| WestA Q 10 8 6 210A Q J 3 2A | East (dealer)J 7 3J 5K 5K Q J 10 4 3 |
Why anybody would open three clubs as East is beyond my curmudgeonly comprehension. East has the wrong pattern and 11 high-card points, including bits and pieces that might be useful for defense. But many Easts did. At one table, where East-West were experts (East was a columnist for the ACBL’s magazine), East opened three clubs, and West jumped to four spades, passed out. Is this bidding?
At other tables, East opened one club with too few prime values, inducing West to bid the spade slam.
At the table I watched, the auction misfired after another East perpetrated a three club opening.
| West 1 3 4 6 | East 3 4 5 |
When West responded three spades, forcing, East was happy to raise. West then wheeled out Roman Key Card Blackwood and bid the slam over East’s five club response. (West thought they were using the “1430” variation of responses, and East had one key card. East, however, was on a different bandwidth. (No matter how sound a convention is in theory, it won’t work if only one half of a partnership is playing it.) The spade slam had about a 50-50 chance — we’ve all been in worse — but the king of spades was offside.
Maybe reaching the club slam is too tough. It would be an underdog if East lacked the club 10 — an unbiddable value. Do you see a way to get there intelligently?If East chooses a sound pass as dealer, the auction will start 1S – 2C, 2D, and then East will show the spade support, dooming East-West to play at spades.To have a chance to play at clubs, East must describe a fair hand — not a preemptive hand — with solid clubs. Suppose East responds three clubs to one spade, saying that the opening bid improved their hand. When West bids three diamonds next, East can try four clubs, suggesting strong clubs plus spade support. If West bids five clubs next, East can cuebid in diamonds, and West may visualize a hand like the one East actually holds and go for the club slam.East-West might have had a chance after East actually opened three clubs if, over West’s three spades, East had cuebid four diamonds instead of raising spades — his hand couldn’t have been much stronger in support of spades. Again, the thought of six clubs might have crossed West’s mind: East might hold good clubs but would be unlikely to hold the king of spades as well as the king of diamonds.All this is fanciful. More than 60 East-West pairs faced the problem and none played in the club slam.Maybe these two hands are unbiddable, except with a complex “relay” system. I’ll send them to “Challenge the Champs.”
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