Bridge

The Atholl Cup, the East District Teams of Four, has been won by David Liggat, Jack Paterson, Derek Sanders and Brian Short. It is played as a Pivot Teams, where each player plays one-third of the boards with each other player in the team.

They achieved a slam swing on this board in spite of partnership unfamiliarity. Playing traditional Acol with a weak no-trump, Jack Paterson opened 1S. David Liggat responded 2C, and Paterson bid his second six-card suit. Liggat leapt to 4H to ensure that game was not missed. This promised four hearts, which improved Paterson's hand considerably. All he needed from partner was four hearts to the king and a doubleton spade to make slam a favourite. Asking for aces would not tell him what he needed to know – partner might have the ace of clubs rather than the king of hearts. So he trotted out five of the agreed major, a rare bid but very useful in this situation.

No-one bids five of a major because they want to play there, so it is a slam try, but not always with the same meaning. If opponents have bid a suit the bid asks partner to bid slam if he has second round control in their suit; against silent opponents it asks partner to bid slam with a good trump holding (as here); or it shows surprisingly good trump in a hand with no other cuebid and asks partner to bid slam with good outside controls.