Slam Hunting by Andrea Manno

Thursday February 12, 2015

 Read in Italian: Click Here

During the February 6th weekend I had the pleasure to play the VI International Barcelona Bridge Open 2015 with Massimiliano Di Franco as my partner.

In a dreamed city, a great event with lots of bridge players, this time the field was 173 pairs with a strong presence of international players: Alfredo Versace, Norberto Bocchi, Jacek Pszezola, Juan Carlos Ventín, Diego Brenner, Dragan Markovic, Luc Soudan, Amadeo Llopart, Federico y Gonzalo Goded, Bernard Cabanes, among others.

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Not only I had the pleasure of playing against many of the best players in Europe I also had the luck to win the event after being among the three leading partnerships throughout the whole event. Today I want to comment about some of the hands that helped us to win, plus I hope that you can find some of our ideas useful …

In a pairs event, playing a slam is always an important opportunity to score points. This is because there are less pairs that arrive to them. That’s why if you can declare and win a slam you always will score a good result.

Throughout the whole competition my partner and me were very accurate and we declare all the slams that were presented to us, especially those which did not have a very high chance of success, but that fortunately we were able to accomplish.

Board 30, Session 1

We play 1NT 12-14 NV, 1NT 15-17 Vul.

West

K Q x x J x x x x K J 10 x

East

J x x x A x x x A Q x A 9

East	West
Manno	Di Franco
1	1
1	1
2	3
4	4
6	The End

1 = 15-17 balanced or 15+ natural or Forcing Game

1 = 4+ hearts

1 = 3 15-17 Balanced or not or 4 with balanced hand 15-16

1 = a hand with 4

2 = 4 balanced 15-16

3 : void

4 = Cue bid, a serious slam try

Lead: 2, ruffed in dummy and a diamond to the Q continuation.

South won the trick with his K and returned a heart, declarer played the K, continued with the Q, a club to the A, a spade ruff, a diamond to the ace. Declarer pitched his two club losers in dummy’s two good diamonds. Score 90,4 %

The four hands were:

Board 19, Session 1

West

Q x x x K x A Q x A x x

East

A K 10 x A J 10 9 x x K x x

East	West
Manno	Di Franco
	1NT
2	2
3	4
4	4
4NT	5
7	The End

1NT = 15-17 balanced

3 = Forcing

4 = cue bid, serious slam try

5 = 2 Key cards + the Trump Queen

Lead: J

The spades were 3-2 and the hearts 3-2. Score 90%

The four hands were:

Board 14, Session 2

West

J 10 9 x A K x x x x K x x

East

A Q 10 x x x K Q x x x A x x

East	West
Manno	Di Franco
1	3
3	4
4	4
4NT	5
6	The End

1NT = 15-17 balanced

3 = 4 cards fit, 8-12 HP

3 = Game try or Slam Try

4 = Cue bid, a serious slam try

5 = 2 Key cards, without the trump queen

Lead: J

The K won the lead, with a diamond to the K, A and a club return. A and a heart to the K. The hearts were 2-2 and the diamonds 3-3. Only one of these distributions were needed. Score 94%

The four hands were:

Esta entrada también está disponible en: Spanish