Here are a couple of hands where Jeff and I misfired on slam auctions.
The first one was the last board of the set against Vince and Francois and was probably (I'm guessing) Vince's favorite board of the set.
Jeff picked up in 4th at unfavorable:
KQ87 / A / AKJ543 / J9
Vince opened 3 Clubs in 3rd on his right. Jeff bid a heavy 3 Diamonds. Francois bid 5 Clubs. I bid 5 Diamonds.
Jeff knew I was on at most a stiff Club, and decided that I probably held either an Ace or a Club void. He bid 6 Diamonds.
I held a stiff and an Ace and Queen 4th of Diamonds. Unfortunately that wasn't enough for slam.
9 / QJ765 / QT97 / A76
KQ87 / A / AKJ543 / J9
If you remember my Vince Who? entry, I speculated that Vince might have anything ('cheese') in 3rd seat at favorable. He proved me right here.
T432 / T932 / 2 / K853 was what he opened 3 Clubs on.
He got his partner off to the best lead and forced us to guess the best contract at an uncomfortable level.
Jeff could have made it double-dummy, ruffing out Francois' Kxx of Hearts, but took the more straightforward ruffing finesse in Hearts line and went down. He had a small inference that Vince probably had a truly horrible hand (desperate times call for desperate measures) and not a couple of Kings, but probably not enough to go on without knowing him a little better. -100 was lose 8 and change.
- / AT743 / KJ8 / AKJ83
Jeff opened 1NT in 2nd. Okay cool. Going to slam for sure. Probably bid a grand unless I can figure out that Jeff is loaded in Spades. I'll start with a transfer to Hearts and then bid Clubs and then maybe exclusion.
Nope.
Glen bid 4 Spades. What to do?
Once Glen bid 4 Spades, I knew I was going to bid a grand. The problem was choosing the right one.
I considered 4NT, which is the way you usually show a distributional 2 suiter in an auction that's gotten uncomfortably high uncomfortably fast, but I thought that just might be to play at these colors. Maybe some 2-2-(7-2) hand for instance, that would rather gamble 4NT than 5m.
I bid 5 Spades, hoping Jeff wouldn't take it as exclusion. It's possible that he would since I could have any number of hands with a spade void and self-sufficient suits where all I want to know is how many non-spade aces Jeff has. But I thought he'd take it as 'pick a slam'.
When Jeff bid 6 Diamonds, I was reasonably happy. He obviously didn't take it as exclusion, since he can't have 2 Aces that aren't the Ace of Spades. He must be coming in Diamonds.
Instead of raising to 7, though, I thought I'd express doubt about Diamonds by bidding 6 Spades. That seemed perfect. The message I was trying to send was: 'I want to be in a grand. I heard you bid 6 Diamonds. I'm still not sure we belong in Diamonds. What do you think?'
Jeff bid 7 Diamonds. Okay cool. Even if this is only on AQxx we might be in the best spot.
Then again, maybe not. We were each sick when we saw the other's hand.
- / AT743 / KJ8 / AKJ83
A9 / KQJ / A6542 / Q92
13 cold tricks in NT. 13 cold tricks in Hearts and Clubs (barring a ruff at trick 1.) Diamonds? Not so much. No play with QT9 offside (and down 2, to add insult to injury.)
-200 was lose 15 big ones.
http://online.bridgebase.com/myhands/fetchlin.php?id=137655&when_played=1193934498
