Jimmy Sez #5

Occasionally a hand comes up that you can make the perfect bid if only you did not let your emotions and visions of great possibilities take you on a ride into the wild blue yonder.  Such a hand was dealt me one Monday at the local club game.  I  held the following hand with this bidding.

Bidding:  1S -  2C  - Me?

S: A J 8 6 5 2   

H: A K 8 5 3  

D: A  

C:  8

Visions of a Grand Slam in NT or Spades was possible if only partner held the right cards.  Since we played Roman Key Card Blackwood  it seemed like the easiest thing was to bid 4NT and put the Slam in Spades as long as partner held the expected cards.  What could possibly go wrong?  When partner responded 5S showing the King and Queen of  Spades and the Ace of Clubs I  tried 5NT  and found we were missing  a King.   I settled for the Spade Grand Slam.   It went down one of course.  What had I failed to consider and what could I have done? 

Here is partners hand:

S: K Q T 9 4 

H: J T 2 

D: K T 5 

C: A 4

What I had failed to consider when evaluating the hand was the possibility that partner had three or more hearts and that the Heart queen might be missing.  Let us now make the more sensible bid of 2H! instead of jumping into 4NT.  After a pass partner will support by bidding 3H.  Now you will use Roman Key Card for Hearts.  After partner shows the Club Ace you will bid 5S! asking for the Heart Queen.  When he denies holding it you will bid 6 Spades  and be quite happy with the result as the Heart queen is a loser.  Had partner not supported your 2H bid, it would be correct to assume that he did not have three hearts.  You could then support spades and when partner raised to 4S you would then invoke Key Card Blackwood and safely bid the Grand Slam in spades.

Sometimes even when it seems a contract is a lock it pays to think about all that might possibly go wrong and try to take measures to make sure that you have adequately analyzed all the pitfalls of the contract.