Poland - Quarter finals - Slam ideas

The better you can describe your hand to partner, the better your partnership will be at determining the best contract. Bid your hand.

I am going to split the quarter final analysis into a couple of articles, because this one on slam ideas is important as a stand alone article.

Things are really heating up. In a world championship like this the standard is so high that in the quarter finals we have final calibre teams — both these teams are multi time national and world champions.

Zimmermann fielded Zimmermann–Multon and Klukowski–Kalita. Rosenthal fielded Rosenthal, Willenken and Schaltz. Pierre Zimmermann is a six time world champion, with World Transnational Open Teams golds in 2007, 2009 and 2015, and a Bermuda Bowl silver from Bali in 2013.

In other words — two of the best teams in the world, with lots to learn for us, including from their mistakes!

Bidding as a conversation

I try to stress a central tenet of bidding: “The better you can describe your hand to partner, the better your partnership will be at determining the best contract”. This is a great example.

Let's first think — are we in the slam zone? One great tool for working that out, when you have a fit, is losing trick count.

Here you have a 5-6 loser hand. You have a 6 loser hand technically, but I would not count 2 spade losers given that you have a 10 card fit, so really a 5 loser. 5 loser opposite an opening hand is in the “slam zone”. It does not mean we just outright bid it, but it means it may be too conservative to just bid game.

What would you bid here? Think along the lines of — since we are in the slam zone, we want to involve partner — what is a bid that best describes your hand?

Other people might play short suit game/slam tries. If you play that, a bid of 3♣ may do it. That is just a matter of system and not particularly important. What is important is that we are thinking along the lines of “let's communicate our hand to partner”.

It is at this point that partner can determine whether their hand is good or bad.

I strongly recommend my points opposite shortage series if you haven't read it.

After the 4♣ bid, partner can bid 4♠ if they are in the bad zone, cue bid if they are in the okay zone, and cue bid and/or insist on slam if they are in the amazing zone. That is, don't let partner sign off if you have an amazing hand, in context. Let's look at some examples.

This is a bad one. Minimum hand with a bunch of wasted stuff in clubs.

This is a minimum in terms of point count, but it's in the okay zone because it only has the Ace of clubs, no other wastage. The Ace is okay. It also has a nice 4 card heart suit which might be a source of tricks, and a doubleton diamond. It's the type of hand I might cue bid on, which indicates to partner — I don't mind my hand in context, it is okay, but perhaps I would not go overboard and insist on slam.

This hand is now “excellent” despite only having 12 points (remember partner knows we are only about 11-14 from the original piece of the auction, opening 1♣ and responding 2♠).

With this hand we should cue bid to let partner know we are very happy to cooperate. And in fact, even if partner signed off, we would likely just kick on and say “our hand is too good, since you have a slam try, we have the right hand for you, we aren't signing off”.

What does the South hand do if partner cue bids after our splinter bid?

Since you were in the slam zone, and partner has said “I hear you have a short club, my hand is not bad for you, I don't have too much wasted opposite your shortage” — you now have the excuse you need to bid 4NT, and just bid 6♠. At least you know dummy will not be “bad” for you.

Whereas, if partner signed off and bid 4♠ immediately:

You can just trust partner. You've told partner that you wanted to bid slam, partner has said “please don't, I have a hand in the bad category for you”.

The actual hand

The players go to a poor slam that could've been avoided.

A related hand

This hand was given to me recently as a question. It's closely related, and in light of the above, what do you think of it?

For the purposes of this it is not important how your system works, more how your hand evaluation is — the central skill of bidding. People focus too much on system sometimes, when the starting step for slam bidding is judgement. You play Jacoby, so 2NT is a raise. This pair played 3♦ as a diamond shortage, different to my suggested system, but that is fine.

How do you feel about your hand? Excellent, okay or terrible?

• If it is terrible, bid 4♠ immediately and strongly discourage partner.
• If it is okay, do something other than sign off immediately.
• If it is excellent, again don't sign off.

This hand only has an Ace opposite partner's shortage, which is okay. It has a 5th trump as an asset, and a nice doubleton that might be very useful. It has two keycards as well (Aces) which are good cards.

Contrast that hand with this one:

Here our hand looks terrible. No useful features and 6 of our 11 points opposite partner's shortage. I would bid 4♠ for sure, sending the strong message “I have a terrible dummy for you, don't do it!”

Here slam is excellent, a laydown — just lose a club and ruff the other clubs. You can draw trumps and claim.

Whereas in the other example hand I gave you, slam would be basically no play. You would have 2 club losers for sure.

Main takeaways

Bidding is a conversation. When we have shortage, partner should be able to tell us:

• I have a bad hand
• I have an okay hand
• I have a great hand

It is not complicated. The key idea is how many points you have opposite the shortage, and whether you have the Ace.