Once in a while every bridge player experiences a hand in which the bridge gods make everything fall into place. The euphoria can outweigh all of the frustrations from miscommunications and fixes on the other hands. This is why bridge players keep coming back to the table. Hand #21 was one of those happy occasions for me.
Board #21
North dealer
North-South vulnerable
West
♠ x
♥ A J x x x
♦ x
♣ A Q x x x x
| | East
♠ A K Q x x x x
♥ K Q x
♦ A K x
♣ ——
|
|
| | | | |
| South | West | North | East |
| | P | 2♣ |
| P | 3♣ | P | 3♠ |
| P | 4♥ | P | 4N |
| P | 5♥ | P | 7N |
| P | P | P | |
I was sitting East. I think that my hand clearly qualifies as a 2♣ opener. For goodness sake, it only has two losers. My partner's 3♣ bid indicated that he also had a pretty good hand, and he guaranteed at least two of the top three honors in clubs as well as at least three additional pieces. Of course, if he only had the KQ, or if I had no way to get to his hand, it would not do me much good.
The key to the auction was my partner's second bid of 4♥. Either he had a lot of hearts, too, or he had some really good ones. He would not introduce a new suit at the four level without a good reason. The blessing was that this bid gave me a way to find out. I bid 4NT asking for key cards in hearts. In most cases it is a bad idea to ask for key cards when you have a void, but in this case if he said that he only had one, I would assume that it was the ♣A and sign off in 6♥. I would expect to lose the ♥A and bring home the spades after a ruff or two. My losing diamond could go on the ♣A. When he showed both aces, I could see quite a few paths to 13 tricks. In a team game, I would have bid 7♥, but because the scoring was in masterpoints, I decided on 7NT, which, as the cards lay, required only a 3-2 break in spades.
Could I have found this without Blackwood? After the 4♥ bid we were pretty much committed to slam, but I would still have been afraid of bidding 4♠. Above all, I did not want him to think about passing. I could have bid 5♣ to show the void. This would probably cause him some consternation, and he might have interpreted it as a preference over hearts. If he responded with 5♥, it would have clarified that we had a relatively solid heart suit and that he had an entry in hearts. Then what? I would have no information about the two things that I cared about – whether he had a card to cover the diamond loser, and whether I could bring in the spade suit.
There is one type of Blackwood, called Exclusion Blackwood, that can be used when one has a void. It is a jump past game when the trump suit has been established. Because I opened 2♣, it was not possible for us to establish a trump suit at a low enough level to jump to 5♣. Besides, knowing about that ♣A gave me the information that I needed to choose the right strain.
It was still a gamble, but once I knew that he held both aces I went for the whole enchilada, and it paid off.