Highlights of the pair of 57% games I had this week (with Pawan Matta on Tuesday and Celine Murray on Wednesday) were a pair of slams. The first one, on Tuesday against Harry Cheung and Liz Clark, was a gamble and I shouldn’t have made it, except that Harry trumped a Club trick while he still had a Club in his hand. It was only good for 5 Spades, but I made 6, the only one to do that.
On Wednesday with Celine, there was a totally deserved Grand Slam. All one had to do was bid it. It was Board 18, North-South vulnerable, East is dealer. I’m sitting North with this hand:
Spades: 8-4. Hearts: K-Q-8.
Diamonds: A-K-Q-10-9-6. Clubs: K-J.
East passes, South – Celine – opens 1 Heart. Hey, I’ve got 18 points and a long suit that’s probably running. Might we take a ton of tricks at No Trump? I bid 2 Diamonds, she replies 3 Clubs. This is getting promising. We can probably make 5 Hearts or 5 Diamonds. I explore for Aces with a Blackwood bid of 4 No Trump. She bids 5 Spades – 3 Aces. OK, five Heart tricks, six Diamond tricks, 2 outside Aces. 7 No Trump. East leads the King of Spades and, sure enough, it’s a lay-down, and I don’t even need to run the Diamonds. There are sure four Club tricks.
South
Spades: A-J-6. Hearts: A-J-10-4-3.
Diamonds: 4. Clubs: A-Q-9-7.
East
Spades: K-Q-10-9-8. Hearts: 7-6.
Diamonds: 8-3-2. Clubs: 10-6-4.
West
Spades: 7-5-3. Hearts: 9-2.
Diamonds: J-7-5. Clubs: 8-5-3-2.
Amazingly, only one other pair out of 10 bid the 7 NT slam, but everyone took all 13 tricks. A couple of them bid 7 Hearts. One stopped at 6 NT. Three more were at 6 Hearts. The poor unfortunates were the ones who didn’t get to 6. One was at 4 NT and, sorriest of all, the one who wound up at 5 Clubs.
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