MANCHESTER CONTRACT BRIDGE ASSOCIATION

21st October 2015

There was an exciting but unsuccessful, from a Manchester point of view, finish to a first round Crockford's match on 15th October.
After 32 boards the scores were tied between Rodney Lighton, John Currie, Tom Slater, Alec Smalley and the Yorkshire team of Sandy Davies, Tom Gisborne, Arthur Hughes and Mike Pomfrey. So four extra boards were played, two of them were fairly uninteresting, but the other two were slam deals.

Dealer E N-S vulnerable

	-
	A98752
	92
	AKJ64



	KQJ1094
	K10643
	7
	9

South	West	North	East
			Pass
1	Pass	2	Pass
4	Pass	4	Pass
4NT	Pass	5	End

Above was the Manchester team's auction. Two hearts was game forcing and four clubs a splinter agreeing hearts. North was worried about two losing diamonds and South thought there were two aces missing. It is often difficult to bid slams with a void in partner's first bid suit. Cue bidding a void in opener's suit didn't work well. Five clubs or five hearts would have been better choices, trying to find if partner had a diamond control.

South	West	North	East
			Pass
1	2	2	5
5	Pass	6	End

The Yorkshire team overcame some opposition pre-emption. Here North knew that there wouldn't be two losing diamonds.

Dealer S Love all (hands rotated for convenience)

	KQJ10
	Q83
	AKQ103
	9



	A876
	AK104
	42
	K108

Despite the king of clubs being superfluous to requirements both teams missed this good six spades slam.

South	West	North	East
			Pass
1	Pass	1	Pass
1NT	Pass	2	Pass
2	Pass	2	Pass
3	Pass	4	Pass
4	Pass	4	End

Playing a five card major system with two diamonds as game forcing checkback, the Manchester players got lots of cue bids in but were reluctant to go beyond the four level. Perhaps South should try three hearts as an advance cue bid over three spades, then he can get a second heart control bid in below the game level and then North would surely bid the slam, but South could continue after four spades with a maximum, good controls and North having made a slam try.

South	West	North	East
			Pass
1NT	Pass	2NT	Pass
3	Pass	3	Pass
4	End

This was the Yorkshire auction
Two no trumps was a transfer to diamonds, three diamonds showed no fit and the rest was natural. South with a maximum no trump opening could have cue bid four hearts over three spades, which would have given them a chance.

Bidding this slam wouldn't have been enough to win the match as it was not vulnerable and the other slam was vulnerable; also Manchester had lost a couple of IMPs on the other two boards.