Sue has often shared with me stories about the slams that she has made. I always asked the same question: “Did you bid it?” Prior to yesterday she always sheepishly admitted that she did not. This time was different, and that is an understatement.

Sue was holding this hand on Friday when she saw her partner, Ilene Mahler, open the bidding by playing the 2NT card:

♠ 6   ♥ K 10 2   ♦ K 9 7 6 5 4 3   ♣ J 7Sue told me that she had bid 2♠ to transfer to clubs. I explained that she could not have made that bid because Ilene had already bid 2NT.

“Oh,” she said. “I must have bid 3♠.”

“What do you and Ilene play that that means?”

“Transfer to clubs.” She had looked on her convention card, but I noticed that she had been looking at the 1NT section, not the 2NT section. I directed her attention there, and she reported that the line was blank.

“So what did Ilene bid?” I queried.

“She said 4♠!” Even though they were playing transfers, Ilene thought that Sue’s bid indicated a strong spade suit. If I had been in Ilene’s seat, I would have alerted the bid, and then, when the opponents asked what it meant, I would have responded “Nothing.”

“And what did you do?”

“I said 4NT, just hoping that she would bid something else or pass, but she took it as Blackwood. She had three aces, so she bid 5♠!”

“Did you mention your seven diamonds at that point?”

“No, I bid 5NT, but she took that as asking for kings. She had one, but she accidentally bid 6♥. My heart sank, but she quickly called a ‘finger fault’ on herself and changed it to 6♦. I was so relieved that I passed.”

So, not only did they reach the best contract. They managed to keep the strong hand concealed!

The play was easy. They had to lose the ♦A, but it was almost impossible to lose anything else. The best part was that 6NT would go down against best defense. They easily got a top board.

Sue asked me how I would have bid it. I looked at Ilene’s hand.

♠ A J 8   ♥ A Q 7 5   ♦ Q 8 2   ♣ A K QSo, IMHO Ilene’s hand was slightly too strong for an immediate bid of 2NT. I would have opened 2♣ and then bid 2NT after Sue responded 2♦. I would have immediately bid 4♣ (Gerber) with Sue’s hand. When I heard about Ilene’s three aces, I would have crossed my fingers, rubbed my rabbit’s foot, and tried 6♦.

That is, I would have bid 6♦ if my partner had responded 4NT to my Gerber bid. The reason that I make that distinction is that the Gerber convention, which I might use once a year, seems to engender counting lapses in many people. By a strange coincidence I used it twice in the last two weeks. On one of those occasions my partner, who held a hand similar to Ilene’s above, responded 4♠ instead of 4NT. I took the plunge anyway, but with Sue’s hand I would have bid 5♦ after a 4♠ response.

On the hand in which my partner made a mistake I was castigated by one of the opponents for asking for aces with a worthless doubleton. Well, admittedly, it is a little dangerous, but when my partner has shown a balanced hand with over half of the deck, I think that it is reasonable to employ Blackwood or Gerber. The alternative is to bid one’s controls. However, when one partner has one or zero controls, and his partner has a lot, it is sometimes not feasible for the weaker hand to use that approach. In short, control bidding works better when the controls are split more evenly, or when the strong hand is the captain.

Incidentally, I play that 4♣ is Gerber if and only if two conditions have been met: 1) The first bid or the last bid by the partnership must have been in no-trump. 2) The last bid must have been 2NT or less. That is, 4♣ was a jump.