Sunday, January 21, 2007 8:51 AM

Jacoby 2NT - Two Suiters

PITBULLS:

A jump after a Jacoby 2NT should be a slam try with a 2^nd suit. If you were minimum with two suits , you would not bother showing your 2^nd suit & just bid 3♣ ( principle of concealment ). There are some hands that you would not bother to show your 2^nd suit , because you were too strong !! These hands are when you want to take control with a “serious” slam try and demand that partner Q bids. The theory behind showing you two suiter is that partner can “count tricks” during the bidding and you get to very good slams or grand slams.

Getting partner to Q bid in your void suit ferrets out duplication of value. BJ Trelford & I had a hand that shows this nicely tonight. I held ♠K1098x ♥void ♦KQJ10x ♣AJx and opened 1♠. BJ bid Jacoby 2NT with ♠xxxx ♥KJxx ♦Axx ♣Kx . I showed my two suits and slam try intentions with a 4♦ bid. Showing a 2^nd suit should be treated as a “serious” slam try. BJ Q bids 4♥ which was I did not want to hear , so I retreat to 4♠. Now the onus is on BJ if he wants to try further. I am “all in” with my 4♦ bid. BJ is minimum so he passes and we are in our best spot.

Change BJ’s hand slightly and trade the KJ of hearts to the spade Ace ( same HCP’s ) . ♠Axxx ♥xxxx ♦Axx ♣Kx and we need a 2-2 trump break for a grand slam. If BJ bypasses a 4♥ Q bid and bids 4♠ , I know he does not have the King or Ace of hearts so I take control. I take control by making an initial Q bid at the 5 level. This bid is defined as Exclusion KCB. I bid 5♥ so this provides a problem if you do not play Exclusion KCB properly . Exclusion sequences should be “2 control KCB” . If you are asking , 2 controls outside of the void suit should be the theoretical maximum. If there are 3 controls outside the void suit , you should never be asking in the first place. Here is how Exclusion KCB should work.

The first step should be zero with the queen of trump entering the picture. The first step is an “or” step (0, 0 ) or ( 0,1 ) . In our notation , the first entry is the control and the 2^nd the trump queen . The 2^nd step should be ( 1, 0 ) , the next step ( 1 , 1 ) , the next step ( 2 ,0 ) and finally ( 2 , 1 ). The reason for this scheme becomes clear with our hand above. Say BJ had the heart Ace as his only Ace and I bid 5♥ . There is no zero step with 1430 KCB until we are forced to slam ! Give BJ our 2^nd hand with the spade & diamond Ace but no trump queen and his response is ( 2 , 0 ) which would be 6♦. I now know that a grand slam is iffy so I sign off in 6. If BJ gave me the ( 2, 1 ) step , I bid our grand slam.