Sunday, April 10, 2005 5:46 AM

KCB - Minors

PITBULLS:

Minor KCB is a great tool . Why ? because aborted slam tries in the minor can be played in 4NT. Let me repeat that . Aborted minor suit slam tries can be played in 4NT. BJ & I had an auction tonight that shows how useful minor KCB is for slam exploration. BJ opened 1♦ and I held Qx AKQxx KJxx xx so I responded 1♥. BJ bid 2♣ so I bid 2♠ which got doubled. BJ bid 3♣ and my 3♦ bid got a 3♠ bid from BJ so now what ? 4♦ is KCB in this sequence and what can go wrong by making the bid ? I bid 4♦ and I get a 4♥ answer which is the worse response I could hear. One Ace and no queen of trump. It is matchpoints so I bail to 4NT which gets us a near top for +630 as 6♦ has no play and we have 10 tricks in NT.

In the Alberta Solvers club I gave this hand to the panel Axxx A10xxx Axx x with the auction going

1♦-P-1♥-P 2♦-P-2♠-P 3♣-P-3♦-P 3NT-P-? Partner can have a bad hand for you with horrible duplication of value in clubs which gives 6♦ no play. But what does it hurt to explore ? 4NT has to make with this diamond support if we get a bad response from partner. Not making one try and just giving up undermines the usefulness of KCB as a bidding tool. You bid 4♦ and hear 5♣ which is two aces with the queen of trump. 6♦ should now be a baby slam. All the ugly responses are at the 4 level ! One Ace is not enough to you sign off in 4NT . No Aces of course is not enough and if partner bids 4NT it is two Aces without the queen. This is the coin toss decision which I would probably pass due to the likelihood of duplication of values in clubs. Why be totally pessimistic and pass 3NT when you have such a great tool at your disposal ?

There is another generalization that is useful for slam auctions . If you had a chance to set the trump suit and did not , a jump to 4NT is quantitative. BJ and I had this auction tonight. Axxx xx AQJ10x AK and I opened 1♦ and LHO overcalled 1♠ . BJ bid 2♥ so I did not know what to bid so I temporized with a Q bid. BJ bid 2NT so I bid 4NT . Quantitative or Blackwood for hearts ? My Q bid after a 2/1 forced to game so 3♥ setting the trump suit would be absolutely forcing. This 4NT bid has to be quantitative. We got to 6NT and that made for +1440 and a top.