Overboard in slam, Round 8

Posted by Nick Hughes on Wednesday, 16 July 2014 at 09:05

Four Open declarers played game on this board, perhaps on an auction like this. The other four had a go at slam, all failing.

Slam requires clubs to come in (50%), the spade finesse, and more. Call it 20%. Two played 6C, with South hoping that North had four of them. Indeed if we change North's H2 to C2, slam is okay.

There will be four club tricks 70% of the time, then a winning spade finesse is 12 tricks. If it fails, a major might break 3-3 plus there are various single and double squeeze chances. All up, worth bidding,

Hands like this show why we play relay.