Bidding Q&A 03

Bidding Q&A 03
This unbelievable deal comes from X-Clubs on 10/11/25. It was also unbelievable from the point of view of the results across all of the clubs so is definitely worth investigating and reporting. I presented the South hand to a number of players across different levels and asked how they would deal with it. The answers were quite an eye opener! Here is the South hand only, and some questions and answers that South might ask, and answer, before bidding after recovering from the shock of seeing the hand and thinking the human dealer had been playing funny buggers with the dealing machine!

Board 3 . Dealer S EW Vul

AKQ842

AKQJ865

You are South and pick up this hand. What are your thoughts?

Q1. Is this hand for real?
A1. Yes of course, it has been dealt by a dealing machine

Q2. Are the other hands likely to be of similar nature, with crazy distributions?
A2. No. There is no reason to think that the other hands will not be a random assortment of the remaining cards

Q3. What should you expect as your final contract?
A3. A grand slam

Q4. Why?
A4. There is only one expected loser, a SPADE. But if you choose the better trump suit, given normal distribution of the other hands, that one loser will either not be there in the first place, or you will be able to take care of it with a ruff, as long as you have a trump suit

Q5. Which is the critical suit?
A5. Obviously spades, that is where your one possible loser is

Q6. How can dummy be of any use, even if it consists of a Yarborough?
A6. The more trumps dummy has, the better your chances

Q7. How can you find out if partner has any support for your spade suit?
A7. By starting with a forcing bid (most of us play 2C as game force) and when partner makes any response, by bidding spades

Q8. If partner supports the spade rebid, what will that tell us?
A8. That partner has at least THREE spades

Q9. If partner has three spades, what then?
A9. You yourself have six spades and that means opponents have only four between them and only if one opponent has all four will you fail to make six spade tricks and thus a grand slam in 7S

Q10. If partner does not support spades, what next?
A10. Bid 7D. Chances are that partner has two spades and two diamonds, but if only one spade andtwo diamonds, a spade ruff will be possible and the grand slam will still be yours

Easy huh? Just don’t do what I consider would be quite stupid and ask for aces, because even if partner has two aces, that won’t mean you can make 7NT. Next time you will be able to see the full deal as it was a couple of Mondays ago, and what people did with it!