Slams 08
The temptation of bidding a slam is something that leads many of us astray. It is a double edged sword and one that has to be handled with great care. To make slam bidding easier, the experts have added the ‘super accept’ to the standard repertoire of transfers. The problem with that is that the super accept can carry a weak hand too far, to the extent that a perfectly good (and weak) two-level contract becomes difficult as a three level one. The following deal may or may not have resulted in a slam if the players were playing the ‘super accept’ but I have a better suggestion for anyone interested, one which we have been using successfully for some time. Let’s look at the deal first.
Board 24 from Tuesday 18/02/2025
Dealer W Nil Vul
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T962
6
954
AJT52West opens 1NT. If East bids 2D, is West good enough to ‘super accept’ with 3H? My recommendation is: only super accept if you have four cards in partner’s suit and a maximum. This West hand comes pretty close, the controls are there but nothing else, so don’t make a super accept.
There is an easier way to bid slams without super accepting when we don’t know what partner is interested in when he makes the transfer bid. Why not use the jump to the three level as a slam try AND a key card ask at the same time? It works in a very simple way. If opener has good support (at least three cards to one or two honours), opener responds with ‘key card’ responses, the steps being the same as over 4NT, except that 3NT shows no support in the suit. The beauty of this is that a slam try can be made, and accepted, in any suit, and the slam try can be made with many hands where you would normally transfer and only consider a slam if partner super accepts.
Given the East hand when West opens 1NT, East can surely bid 3H and when West shows two key cards without the heart queen, happily give 6H a shot, with the evidence there that at the very worst the slam will require a finesse. Only a few EW pairs bid this slam, some by West and some East, but the thing of real note is that one brave soul, sitting North, led the five of clubs against West’s 6H!!
