I don't think you can win a Grand Slam and not be confident in yourself. Naomi Osaka
The above were the thoughts of the first Japanese girl to win a Grand Slam title in tennis, Naomi Osaka beat the great Serena WIlliams in an ill-tempered match and then went on to win three more grand slams. Not to be outdone, this year at the Masters, the Land of the Rising Sun had its first Grand Slam title with the success of HIdeki Matsuyama.
A Grand Slam in bridge is always a special event, and the opportunity was there yesterday at the Woodberry Bridge Club for a grand slam to be bid. But would it have made?
Sadly we were North-South on this board, but we might well have replicated the auction that Phill Mattacks and Ken Rolph produced. Certainly it is right to play 6NT in anything other than a World Class field. You don't want to be bidding 6C, and certainly 5C as one pair reached, deserved a very poor score.
I would open 1C as West and the auction might go 1C-1H-1NT(15-17)-2D (any game force)-2H-3C-(forcing) but I think I would just choose 6NT now. I will ask my Precision friends if they could reach 7C here. I originally thought Phil Mattacks line of cashing two top hearts was right, but on reflection it is better, to win the diamond lead, cross to a top club and play a heart to the jack. If that loses you can cash the top hearts and then take the spade finesse. Overall this works if South has the queen of hearts, if the ten of hearts is doubleton, if hearts are 3-2 or if South has the king of spades. Around 88% overall.
How would one play 7C? I think it is right to play a dummy reversal and try to ruff two spades in the East hand. Here the king of spades comes down doubleton so all is plain sailing. Declarer can just draw three rounds of trumps.
A token for ship boys, plain-sailing made more plain and short than usually, in three particular methods.
Blue Club is superior to Precision!
ReplyDelete13-17 1NT - 2D 12+
16-17, denies 4 H's 2S - 3C Good suit
4 Clubs 4C - 4NT RKCB, Ryan's adjustment
2 +CQ 5S - 5NT Specific K. R's Adjustment
6D - 7C Partner is 4324 or 4234. 7C cold!
Indeed, MIchael and Web, our Precision friends, don't think they would reach grand. A possible auction would be something like:
ReplyDelete1D+2C (10+ 5+ Clubs)
2NT (15-16)-3H (natural, implies an original GF opposite 11-15 unbalanced with Diamonds) 3NT (scared to ignore 13 HCP in the unbid suits) 4D (patterning out with quantitative values) or perhaps just 4NT quantitative, which also doesn’t get to 7. 4S (cue) 5C (non-forcing, but forward going since 4NT is natural; we play 4NT here as a trump cue if we’ve had two cue bids, but only one is present, and for good measure, we don’t know what trump are)
6C (a 5D cue, which might get to 7, is unavailable, since opener might have bid this way with a weaker hand and 3352 shape and need to sign off in Diamonds).