Sunday, April 10, 2005 5:46 AM

Hand Evaluation – Aborted Slam Tries

PITBULLS:

Minor KCB (minorwood) is a great tool . Why ? because aborted slam tries in the minor can be played in 4NT. Let me repeat that . Aborted minor suit slam tries can be played in 4NT. Partner & I had an auction tonight that shows how useful minor KCB is for slam exploration. Partner opened 1♦ , I held ♠Qx ♥AKQxx ♦KJxx ♣xx so I responded 1♥. Partner bid 2♣ so I bid 2♠. Partner bid 3♣, my 3♦ bid resulted in a 3♠ bid from Partner so now what ? 4♦ is KCB in this sequence so what can go wrong by making the bid ? I bid 4♦ , received a 4♥ answer which is the worse response I could hear. One Ace with no queen of trump. It is matchpoints so I bail to 4NT which gets us a near top for +630 as 6♦ has no play & we have 10 tricks in NT.

In the Alberta Solvers club I gave this hand to the panel ♠Axxx ♥A10xxx ♦Axx ♣x with the auction going

1♦-P-1♥-P

2♦-P-2♠-P

3♣-P-3♦-P

3NT-P-? Partner can have a bad hand for you with horrible duplication of value in clubs which gives 6♦ no play. But what does it hurt to explore ? 4NT has to make with this diamond support if we get a bad response from Partner. Not making one try & just giving up undermines the usefulness of minor KCB as a bidding tool. You can make a slam try with that bid. You bid 4♦ , hear 5♣ which is two aces with the queen of trump. 6♦ should now be a baby slam. All the ugly responses are at the 4 level ! One Ace is not enough to you sign off in 4NT . No Aces of course is not enough , so if Partner bids 4NT it is two Aces without the queen. This is the coin toss decision which I would probably pass due to the likelihood of duplication of values in clubs. Why be totally pessimistic & pass 3NT when you have such a great tool at your disposal ?

There is another generalization that is useful for slam auctions . If you had a chance to set the trump suit but did not , a jump to 4NT is quantitative. We dislike the notion of KCB off the last bid suit unless the opponents caused the lack of bidding space. Partner & I had this auction tonight. ♠Axxx ♥xx ♦AQJ10x ♣AK , I opened 1♦ & LHO overcalled 1♠ . Partner bid 2♥ so I did not know what to bid so I temporized with a Q bid. Partner bid 2NT so I bid 4NT . Quantitative or Blackwood for hearts ? My Q bid after a 2/1 forced to game so 3♥ setting the trump suit would be absolutely forcing. This 4NT bid has to be quantitative. We got to 6NT which made for +1440 & a top.