A 29 point hand

By Djanwar Madjolelo

The Summer NABC, Aug. 2 to Aug. 12, 1996

Board no: 60

Final round: Spingold knockout teams

Dealer: West

Vulnerable: North-South

NORTH

(S) J

(H) J 10 6 5

(D) K 8 7 4 2

(C) 10 9 2

WEST EAST

(S) A K Q (S) 8 6 5

(H) A K (H) 3 2

(D) A Q J 3 (D) 9 5

(C) K Q J 3 (C) A 8 7 6 5 3

SOUTH

(S) 10 9 7 4 3 2

(H) Q 9 8 7 4

(D) 10 6

(C) void

OPEN ROOM:

WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH

Soloway Rodwell Goldman Meckstroth

2C Pass 2D Pass

4NT Pass 5D Pass

6C Pass 7C All pass

Soloway quickly discovered that Goldman had Club Ace and suggested a Club Slam -- Goldman was at liberty to correct.

The Pandergraph (View graph) crowd was quiet -- 6 Club seemed normal.

But the crowd was visibly stirred when Goldman decided the Grand Slam would be worthwhile since he had sufficient length in Clubs.

Just when it appeared that the Nickell combination might be heading for a fall, it suddenly went back to shoot into the lead.

Soloway had no choice, of course, he had to take the Diamond finesse unsuccessfully for one down. If dummy had had two Spades and three Hearts, it would have been different -- well, it wasn't.

CLOSED ROOM:

WEST NORTH EAST SOUTH

Hamman Sontag Wolff Schwartz

1C (1) Pass 1D (2) Pass

2C (3) Pass 3C (4) Pass

6NT All pass

(1) Artificial and forcing

(2) 0-5 High Card Point

(3) Equal to a standard 2C forcing bid

(4) Long Clubs with a feature somewhere in hand

Systematic bidding helped Hamman and Wolff. Wolff got the message that he was nearly broke in his first bid.

That forced him to make a positive bid on his second turn. Hamman knew Wolff couldn't have both the Diamond King and Club Ace. But the practice bid indicated that he had one of them, so Hamman bid 6 No Trump.

That came home easily -- 14MPs to Nickell.