Slam Range at IMP’s
You pick up the following, neither vul at IMP’s:
A Q 5 4 
A 6 5 
6 5 
A 9 5 4.
Pard opens 1 and you respond 1. Pard jumps to 4. 4 would have been the 6-4 hand and he also did not splinter, so you know you are facing a balanced or semi-balanced 19 value. What is your move?
Clearly we’re in the slam zone - even I can count to 33 points! Can we have a grand though? It is hard to see how you can find out whether you have enough for a grand slam. Although perhaps you need to tell partner you have all the controls though - a precipitous jump to 6S would certainly not invite him to the decision-making party. So if you bid 4NT, and he responds 5H, you can bid 5NT. With KJxx, Kx, AKQxx, Kx, he would definitely bid the grand, and would be right about 80% of the time. With KJxx, Kx, AKQxx, Qx, he might bid the grand, and you’d have only a 20% chance. Still, I think we need to invite partner to the party - I don’t just blast. Maybe cue-bidding is better though - e.g. 5C - 5D - 5H - and pard can bid 5NT GSF with the really great hand. Or does everybody play 5NT as choice of slams nowadays? Still, I think I like the cue-bidding approach better than the blackwood approach. I have more of a “telling” hand than an “asking” hand.
November 16, 2006 Mark Kinzer
Your next call would be easy at matchpoints: You would have to bid 4NT because you need to play 6NT, not 6S, if you are missing a keycard. Quite frankly, I think 4NT then 5NT if all the keycards are there describes the hand well (it shows all four important cards in your hand), but you clearly have nothing to spare. Against a team known not to bid aggressively, I would settle for 6S even opposite two keycards; against a world-class team, I would look for the grand. In other situations, I think it’s a tossup. AQ104 would make me a lot happier than AQ54. If partner has only one keycard, I would still put this in 6S at IMPs. Partner’s keycard will usually be the SK. He is supposed to rebid 2NT with a balanced 19 and four small spades (and this deal is one reason for that).
November 20, 2006 Christopher Monsour