Vil Gravis on 17FRID

Friday Review

This deal came from a Friday afternoon session.
Board 6 Dealer E EW Vul

	4 J7654 Q9 KQJ73
AQT75 Q2 AJ543 5		J9632 AKT3 KT2 9
	K8 98 876 AT8642

If you're holding the West hand and partner opens 1S, how can you possibly NOT bid to slam? However you assess your hand, you should come to the conclusion that you should bid to 6S as long as partner has one ace. Whether you ask for aces immediately doesn't matter, but you may decide to bid a quiet 2D and wait for partner's rebid because you may then even decide to look for the grand slam. But in a match point session why not just settle for the small slam?

Hard to believe, but only SEVEN pairs out of TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY-ONE bid to 6S. Could that have been because East did NOT open the bidding? I can hardly believe that, because East has a perfectly respectable opening bid, with ELEVEN high card points and that shape. You can see how NOT opening the bidding might stop you getting to where you should be, even if slam depends on a finesse. Sadly, four of the declarers in 6S must have been in shock because those results were down one.

After South took the ace of clubs on the opening lead, declarer decided to try and drop the missing king of trumps. The odds actually favour finessing, because South might have either two OR three trumps whereas going for the drop once South follows with the eight then requires North to have a singleton king. Of course a smart declarer will start on spades by LEADING the jack to see whether South twitches or not, but South should also be smart enough to know that covering in this case is going to be totally futile since North cannot possibly have more than one spade. But at least TRY to elicit some sort of response from South before you finesse anyway.