• eBulletins

The Slam Quarter

Posted by Rakesh Kumar on Friday, 23 October 2015 at 06:53

The second match on day 2 of the Open Qualifying featured a minor epidemic of deals with slam potential. Two were fairly routine 6H contracts and one was almost completely unbiddable, although as the cards lay it was cold for 13 tricks even though there were only 27 high card points between the two hands. Board 16, however, was more interesting:

Somewhat reminiscent of the siren song of Match 1 Board 11, this offered the possibility of a slam in spades, as well as in clubs or even in notrump. However, 6S encountered a disastrous trump break and 22 E-W pairs went off in this contract. Five pairs bid and made 6C and 19 pairs made 6NT, although once the 4-1 split in clubs was revealed, everything was riding on the diamond finesse -- fortunately this worked!

Board 3 was much more challenging to bid. Although only 9 N-S pairs reached this slam, many more gave it serious thought:

It seems to be a hand for splinters, cues and courage ... as it turned out the cards lay well and most declarers made 13 tricks.