We continue Friday the 13th¡¯s Grand-Slam-a-Palooza with Board 4, Karleta¡¯s second grand slam of the day:
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This hand has some similarities to Board 25. There are nine trumps instead of eight, and a combined 33 HCP instead of 32, but the major-suit fit is missing the queen, the partnership holds all the aces and kings and the responding hand holds the singleton club king opposite five headed by the ace-queen (although here East holds the jack as well). The extra point and extra trump, along with opening bidder¡¯s not holding a singleton king, gave a considerable boost to the bidding results. Board 25 resulted in seven game contracts, three small slams and two grand slams (weirdly, two of the three small slams failed while both grand slams made); here, while the first pair stopped in game, the next seven E-W pairs and one later bid small slams, while three of the last four E-W pairs to play the hand bid grand slams, with only Karleta succeeding, in 7H.
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Jerik were N-S top when their opponents tried 7NT. That contract did have more chance of succeeding than 7H, with only the minor drawback of potentially failing by more than one trick. There is a legitimate play for the contract if declarer does not bring in the hearts. It needs a lot ¨C a 4-3 club split, the diamond finesse and either an especially lucky spade position or for one defender to hold both major guards ¨C heart Qxx and spade QJx or longer, allowing a squeeze. Accordingly, after misguessing the hearts, declarer took the diamond finesse and ended two down (although he could have saved one down by taking the king first, then winning the second diamond and giving up the heart queen, as the red queens were in opposite hands). In 7H, Breta guessed the trumps correctly, while Phary¡¯s opponents did not.
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A reasonable auction might be something like 1C-1H; 2NT-3H; 4C-4NT; 5C-5D; 5H-6NT. After opener¡¯s jump rebid of 2NT, responder can use 3C as a relay to 3D with all hands that want to stop below game, freeing up a direct 3H as forcing (I have an old book of Sam Stayman¡¯s from the 1960s in which 1m-1M; 2NT-3M is listed as non-forcing, back in the day before relay-style conventions were common). East has an excellent hand for hearts ¨C good controls, good support, good side suit. It would be possible to cue bid the spade ace first with 3S but starting with a cue bid of 4C allows East to follow with 4S if West cue bids 4D. As it happens, West knows the side has 33-34 HCP, and is going to small slam at least. East shows three key cards ¨C good. But East denies holding the queen of hearts. The six-level is high enough; East can¡¯t have quite enough to provide good play for a grand slam without bringing in the hearts. 6NT is a good matchpoint try. The only risky hand East might hold would be, say, AQJx? KJx? xx? AQJx ¨C missing the heart queen and diamond king-queen. Even then, the chance of an opening diamond lead is not high, as North would probably not lead away from the quing. And even after a diamond lead, more than half the time West will bring in the hearts and make an overtrick.
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7H is fine if the opening lead is a trump, which is likely to happen if opening leader holds, say, a low doubleton. One can be uneasy about leading a singleton trump against a grand slam, especially against opponents who don¡¯t look for the trump queen. Or the opponents could hold an eight-card fit with all the top three honours missing jack-fourth in partner¡¯s hand.
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Now, as we saw in the case of Board 25 (although that was an eight-card fit, so that there was less chance of opening leader¡¯s holding a singleton), it is not unreasonable when, playing a grand slam with a two-way finesse (or here there¡¯s even the third alternative of playing for the drop) for the queen of trumps, assuming that an opponent who does not lead a trump may well hold the queen. Here, that line of thinking would not work. Is there any clue that might tip table presence the other way? There are four ways to play the trumps, with chances (assuming no ruff of an attempted entry to a necessary hand) in a range from 50% to 57.5%. King, then drop (57.5%); king, then finesse (56.25%) (ace, then drop has a unique chance of success of 52.5% but is just an inferiour subset of king, then drop); ace, then finesse (51.25%); run the ten (50%).
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I only saw that Breta received the opening lead of a black card, and missed the rest of the hand, although it¡¯s clear that she guessed the trumps correctly. I¡¯ll assume that South was not so inexperienced as to cover the heart jack on the second round or take too long to duck. If the lead were a club, I can¡¯t see any hint strong enough that South probably holds Qxx or Qxxx. A spade lead to the queen and ace ¨C just maybe. Leading away from a jack (if third hand is not false-carding) is not an obvious lead. I might catch it if the lead were a slow one, on the idea that a player with Qxx or Qx in trumps would lead quickly, in order to try not to look like a player holding the queen of trumps. But it¡¯s always hard to guess what will set off one¡¯s table presence.
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Of the three possible grand slams, 7C ought to be the surest make. It requires a 4-3 trump split as well as the heart guess but is the only contract in which the guess solves itself. I¡¯ll assume an opening trump lead. Club king, spade ace, club ace, club queen, club jack. Alas, West must discard a diamond on the fourth trump, but this only makes a difference when the diamond queen drops doubleton. After trumps are drawn, the heart king comes while East still holds an entry (although North might likely have doubled 7C with a void heart). Then, in either order, declarer cashes the top two diamonds and the spade king followed by a ruff, in either case ending in the East hand looking at:
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with only the heart queen and nine-spot outstanding. What does East know about the distribution? South held four clubs and North three. South discarded on the second diamond, marking North with six. And North followed to all three rounds of spades as well as the first heart. 3+6+3+1=13. North¡¯s remaining cards are all diamonds; the heart finesse is marked. Being able to ruff the third spade is what gives 7C its edge over 7NT, in which contract declarer could play only two rounds of spades before guessing the hearts, which would leave both 3=1=6=3 and 2=2=6=3 as possible hand patterns.
