Hand of the week 15th February

9^th February Board 17

I don’t want to continue only discussing slam hands but so few pairs managed to reach a small slam on this board.

N was dealer and passed. E had a good hand with 17hcp and bid 1D. S passes. W also holding a good hand with 16 hcp 6Hs and singleton S, bids 1H. Juniors, I know you want to show your partner you have a strong hand and want to jump to 2 or 3 Hs but don’t, you must wait until partner describes his hand with second bid. N passes. E with a second suits bids 2S.

This is a jump bid showing he has 16+hcp and an unbalanced hand, if partner was balanced, they would have bid NT. S passes. W now knows they have a combined 32+hcp, time to Ace ask.

Using 4C, partner responses 4D, is this 0 or 3. How do you know which it is. A simple trick is KQJ x 4 is 24 hcp, total the hcp in your hand, which is 12 and deduct it from 24.

In this case the result is 12, partner showed 16+ leaving only 4hcp for aces so it can’t be 0 so must be 3. 12 hcp for aces leaving 4+ for KQJs. Bid 5C response is 5H, 1 king.

That is 15hcp they still have some points for Q or J. You have all the As and Ks. What to bid, Your partner showed 2 suits unbalanced so probably is 5D and 4S, if so you have 9Ds headed by AKQxx, bid 7NT.

It is very makeable but you must take the H finesse, 4 from E to J in West.

HAND BELOW.