A Tale of Two Grands

[OliverC]

Had an interesting session with Eszter earlier today, in which we bid not one but two Grand Slams.

(1) What's the Best Line?

NS Game, Dealer North

South (Dummy)
KQ62
AQ97
A104
KJ

North
AJ103
1054
8
AQ984

Bidding
North       East       South        West
2           No         2            No
2           No         3 (1)       No
4 (2)      No         4 (3)       No
4NT(4)      No         5 (5)       No
6 (6)      X           7            X
All Pass

(1) Eta in Spades
(2) KJxx
(3) Relay Beta
(4) 4 Controls
(5) Epsilon in Clubs
(6) AQxxx

Without the Double of 6 I would probably have gone quietly in 6 , but that persuaded me (correctly) that Eszter was more likely to have a singleton Diamond. I think if I had been Declarer the double of 7 would definitely have persuaded me that West held the King of Hearts so, rightly or wrongly, I wouldn't have taken the line Eszter took (which is a perfectly reasonable line apart from that double of 7 ). No blame to Eszter for the result here:

Eszter won the opening lead, draw two rounds of trumps, cashed the KJ of Clubs, then a 3rd round of trumps to her hand. Now she cashed the rest of the Clubs, throwing 2 Hearts and a Diamond from Dummy, and then took the Heart finesse for her 13th trick. Unfortunately, the finesse lost.

My preferred line would have been slightly different: After winning the opening lead I'd have ruffed a Diamond, crossed back to the King and ruffed another Diamonds. Now the Ace of Spades, J overtaken (if East follows) and run all of the Spades, discarding Hearts from my hand. Lastly the J overtaken with the Ace, and hope for 3-3 or 4-2 with the 10 doubleton. If that doesn't work, I can still fall back on the Heart finesse but I need East to have the KJ).

Both Eszter line and mine need the Spades 3-2. Overall I think my line works out at about 76% (36%+16%+24%) rather than Eszter's 50%, but I'm not a expert statistician . Probably I should have just stuck with 6 , which is child's play.


(2) Picking the Right One
You've seen examples of this kind of hand in some of my teaching sessions. Here is one from real life. You are South:

South
K932
KJ93
AK8
A5

EW Game, Dealer North

Bidding (No opposition interference)
North       South
1            1NT
2            3 ⁽¹⁾
3 ⁽²⁾       3NT⁽³⁾
4 ⁽⁴⁾       5 ⁽⁵⁾
6 ⁽⁶⁾       7 ⁽⁷⁾
All Pass

(1) Gamma in
(2) HHxxx or HHHxx
(3) Relay Beta
(4) 4 Controls
(5) Epsilon in Hearts
(6) AQxx
(7) To Play (can't really be anything else, certainly not a repeat Epsilon looking for the Jack). Hearts is the only makeable Grand. I don't need to know how Eszter's Minors are distributed, but I do need her 5th Spade to discard one losing Minor card from my hand. This Grand doesn't work if we play it in Spades, only in Hearts.

East led the 6 and Eszter was looking at

South (Dummy)
K932
KJ93
AK8
A5

6 led

North
AQ1087
AQ86
72
82

Eszter won the opening lead and drew trumps in three rounds, West discarding a Club on the 3rd round. Now she carefully cashed the Ace of Spades. This was critical, because she can catch Jxxx in either hand, so it was crucial to cash a Spade first from the North Hand. This care was rewarded when West showed out, and now it was a simple matter to play the Quee, take the marked finesse against the Jack, Cash the King, AK , ruff a Diamond, throw Dummy's losing Club on the long Spade and ruff her losing Club. Well done Eszter!

I wasn't thinking about 7 initially. If I had thought about it, I might well have spared Eszter the mental effort required to pass 7 , by making my initial Gamma in Hearts rather than Spades, so now 1 - 1NT - 2 - 3 (Gamma ) - 3NT(HHxx) - 4 (Beta) - 4 (4) - 5 (Eps) - 6NT(AQxxx) - 7 - Pass. If Eszter doesn't have the Queen of Spades, she'll bid 6 rather than 6NT and I just let her play there and hope she finds the Queen.

Over the two Grand Slams we made a massive profit of ½ IMP