June 2009 - 61

Partnership
Bridge
By Pamela and Matthew Granovetter
www.bridgetoday.com

Pamela: Sometimes I feel like I
bid and I bid and I bid, but never get
anywhere because my partners are
frightened of bidding slams. I blame
this on the prevalent "all or nothing"
attitude, e.g., we are going to bid
game or slam, but Heaven forbid we
should - gasp! - bid anything at
the five level. I don't know if I should
blame the late Ed Manfield for this.
(His famous tip was, "The five level
belongs to the opponents.") Perhaps
the bridge teachers of the world are
culpable for limiting slam bidding lessons to Blackwood and its variations.
Dlr: South  A Q 5
Vul: Both  A 10 9 8 5 4
 10
AK6
 K 10
98
N
KJ72
Q63
 Q 9 8 3 2 WSE  K 7 5 4
42
9873
J76432
-
AJ6
 Q J 10 5
West

North

East

South
Pass
1
2 (2)
3
3
4
4

Pass
1
Pass
Pass
Pass
2 (1)
Pass
Pass
2 (3)
Pass
3
Pass
Pass
4
Pass
Pass
4
Pass
All Pass
(1) Two-way bid, showing either clubs
or a strong three-card spade raise.
(2) Which is it?
June 2009

(3) The strong hand with three-card
spade support.
Pamela (continued): Take this
deal, for example. I was North and
using a homemade convention. In
the auction 1 - Pass - 1 - Pass;
2 shows an either/or hand: hearts
and clubs or hearts and three spades
with extra values. It seemed perfect
for the North hand. You would hate to
rebid 3 and miss a spade fit. So I
showed a good hand with three-card
spade support, but my partner
wouldn't move past game. We ended
up plus 710 instead of plus 1460.
Matthew: The trouble with most
homemade conventions is that the
follow-up bidding is murky. In this
case, your partner bid his second
suit. What he needed was to be able
to make a bid that shows extra spade
length, with just a little bit of slam
interest. After all, a void opposite
your heart suit doesn't look so great,
does it?
I think the solution to this problem is to play that 4 over 2 is
a splinter in hearts, opener's suit.
Then, responder has told his story in
one fell swoop and opener can intelligently judge his cards for slam.
Pamela: Well, the South hand
would have a play for slam if opener
had only two black aces. Opposite
three spades to the ace and three
clubs to the ace, slam will take
2-2 spades and a successful club
finesse, but we've all been in worse.
Of course, North was showing a lot

more than just a couple of aces, and
when I'm in South's position I am
not shy about making every effort to
reach slam. We don't need to do your
favorite thing (change the bidding
methods) after every hand - usually
we can find the right spot just by
using common sense. In this case,
South has a tremendous playing hand,
and as a passed hand, South can bid
his head off without worrying about
overstating his values. Why not bid
5 over 4, asking for good trumps
for slam? Is the five level really so
fearful?
The Last Word (Matthew): I
would rather open 2 as South than
bid as you suggest. You might not like
adding system understandings, but a
better follow-up method is definitely
in order here, because South doesn't
know how much is wasted or not
wasted in hearts. Yes, I am one of
those who finds the five level scary.
A weak 2 bid is far from perfect,
because the spades are so weak,
but South has a tremendous hand.
Change your example hand just a
little bit to:
A K x x x x x x x x A x x,
and 6 is a contract we'd all like to
reach. How else can one get there except by opening the bidding with 2
(and even then some good judgment
is necessary)? My tip is to open good
playing hands in the first place, rather
than relying on difficult bidding machinery (as much as I like it!) to play
catch-up.
r

61
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of June 2009
