Let's Play a Grand Slam

 

A couple of weeks ago, I put my partner into a grand slam contract. Hands like this don’t come up often, but it is exciting when they do.

As South I was dealt this hand:

My partner was the dealer. I expected to be the one opening the bidding. I’ve got 23 points and even distribution. With 22-24 points, I would open 2 clubs and rebid no trump. To my surprise, my partner opened the bidding with 1 heart. He was holding this hand:

One heart is a good bid for this hand. It contains 11 points in high cards and 2 more points for distribution.

With my hand, I am delighted to hear the heart bid. Expecting at least 13 points from my partner and adding my 23, we have at least 36 points. It takes 37 to bid a grand slam. With 19+ points responding to an opening 1 bid, I should make a jump shift—that is, bid a new suit at one level higher than necessary. My only real suit is the one that my partner bid, so I need to invent a new suit to bid. I chose to bid 3 clubs.

My partner has support for the clubs, so he bid 4 clubs. I don’t really want to be in clubs and I want to be at least in a small slam. If I bid hearts, my partner might pass. I don’t want that. Looking at the specific high cards in my hand, I am only concerned that we might be missing the ace of diamonds. The way to find that out is with the Blackwood ace-asking convention. I bid 4 no trump.

An important side note is that the Blackwood convention should be used to keep you out of a small slam when you are missing two aces, and to keep you out of a grand slam when you are missing two kings. Many beginners misuse the convention to try and find a slam. Only bid Blackwood when you are already confident that you have enough points for the slam you are considering.

My partner responds with 5 diamonds, showing one ace. That’s all I need to know. I could have asked for kings by bidding 5 no trump. In retrospect, that was probably a good idea. If we are missing the king of clubs, we might still be able to make the grand slam with a finesse, but a finesse is just a 50-50 proposition. A small slam is worth too much to risk going down in a grand slam half of the time. Still, my partner needs to fit his 13 points in somewhere. It’s hard to imagine where his 13 points could be if he is missing the king of clubs. It’s possible, though. He could hold the QJ in spades and hearts for 6 points, the AJ of diamonds for 5 more, just little cards in clubs, and 2 points for distribution. That would have made a grand slam difficult. Yeah, I should have asked for kings, but I just bid 7 hearts at this point.

Had my partner responded with 5 clubs to my Blackwood inquiry, I would have bid 6 hearts. We should easily have enough combined strength for a small slam, and we can afford to lose one trick to the ace of diamonds.

Given that I knew we were going to end up in a heart contract, I could have simply started off with Blackwood at my first turn.

Let’s make a plan for the play of the hand. Looking from North’s point of view (the weaker hand that opened the bidding), declarer needs to avoid a loser in clubs and one in spades. The dummy has two extra winners in diamonds, so declarer just needs to pull trumps, play the ace of diamonds in his hand, and lead to one of the winners on the board. Then, he cashes the K and Q of diamonds discarding a small spade and small club in his hand. The hand plays itself from that point. Easy, peasy.