Improve Your Play #06-11

IMPROVE YOUR PLAY
with Larry Matheny

It's no secret that different hands create different auctions so you need a variety of bidding tools. For example, it is not essential to use Blackwood for all slams. In fact, it can get you into trouble. Here is a typical example.

Scoring: Matchpoints (pairs)

Hand #11
Dlr	N
Vul	E-W

	A104
	Q63
	KJ85
	KJ6

	J32
	AK75
	1032
	1074

	7
	10984
	9764
	8532

	KQ9865
	J2
	AQ
	AQ9

West	North	East	South
	1	Pass	1
Pass	1NT	Pass	2*
Pass	3	Pass	4
Pass	4	All Pass

*New Minor Forcing

BIDDING: After North rebid 1NT, South used the New Minor Forcing convention to find out about spade support. North's jump to 3

showed three card support and a maximum hand. South was now interested in slam but realized they could be missing the top two honors in hearts. Therefore Blackwood was NOT the answer. This partnership's cue bidding style was to show either first or second round controls. And, to avoid ambiguity about which suit they had agreed (a 4

cue could be confusing), South cue bid diamonds. When North could not cue bid a heart control, South knew they were high enough.

PLAY: West won the first two heart tricks and South claimed the rest. What is so interesting about this hand is that in a local game, seven of the ten North-South pairs bid either 6

or 6NT. Six went down and one pair was successful. I'm still not sure what happened with that defense since West was on lead.

To oversimplify the issue: When you want to know HOW MANY aces partners has, use Blackwood. When you want to know WHICH aces partner has, start cue bidding.

Copyright ©2007 Larry Matheny.