Monday, January 30, 2006 8:45 AM

Hand Evaluation –Slam Bidding ( Vulnerability )

PITBULLS:

Penalty Doubles in IMPS & Rubber Bridge are easier decisions than penalty doubles in the matchpoint game. In IMPS & rubber Bridge , you take your huge set as insurance. If they bid a slam at the other table & make it so what ? The difference will be minimal so you only lose a small number of IMPS. If the slam does not make , you have won a ton of IMPS. Matchpoints is a lot tougher though. My partner held this hand playing matchpoints ♠QJxx ♥xxx ♦AQxx ♣Kx , he was vul vrs non vul opponents. He heard his partner open 2♣ & his RHO overcalled 2♠ ! Some people play a double here has a 2^ND negative or controls . Partner with a NT hand is required to re-open with a double, if responder passes initially. My partner prefers the old fashioned penalty double as an initial action.

With this hand you may have too much to make a penalty double on this one vulnerability combination. What ! Is that a contradiction or what ? Partner will leave your penalty doubles in with all the NT range hands 22-24 HCP . This puts your partnership in the 35 HCP range for this hand. This hand is a matter of doing arithmetic during the auction. You will beat 2♠X doubled 5 or 6 tricks which is 1100 or 1400 . In IMPS , who cares as you should not have a grand slam with these combined HCP’s , so why not take out insurance against a small slam not making ? The spade King looks off side for 7NT , but we cannot be off the AK of spades as we have 34 HCP minimum. In matchpoints , I would not double 2♠ but simply pass ( in IMPS I would also pass but not rubber Bridge) . I do not want partner leaving it in with the NT range of hands as we would have 35 HCP so 6NT is on for +1440. This pass allows partner a chance to describe her 2♣ opener. If she doubles showing a NT hand , you bid 3♠ as a western Q to find out the spade situation & leap to 6NT for your +1440. There are grand slam possibilities which also make the initial penalty double anti-percentage.

My actual hand was ♠Ax ♥AK10 ♦K ♣AQJ109xx so I would re-open with 3♣. We may get to our grand slam in clubs or 7NT. At the table , my partner did double but I jumped to 3NT based on the vulnerability & source of tricks. Partner knows that I do not have the NT hand or else I would have passed 2♠X. Partnew leapt to 6NT which makes 7 so we got a good match point result as most pairs were in 6♣. Maurice &Susan got to 7NT via a marginal opening bid with partner’s hand ( Maurice of course ) . 2 quick tricks with a flat 12 HCP vul vrs not ( not for the faint of heart ) .

Can we recover & make a grand slam try on our auction ? Very tough to do quantitatively . A jump to 5NT by responder would say bid 6 with a minimum & 7NT with a maximum. However , partner has more of a distributional hand on this auction so we may get to 7NT off an Ace. What is a 4♠ bid ? It should be natural & exposing a psyche so that bid is out. I think a leap to 6NT is all we can do at this point. Maybe reading my leap to 3NT as a source of tricks might inspire a 7 NT bid but it would just be an educated guess.