Bridge - The Scotsman 08/02/2013

This Grand Slam from the Winter Fours was relatively simple to bid using basic Acol.

East made a strong jump shift, West rebid his diamonds, East raised diamonds, and the major suit aces were cuebid in turn. Roman Keycard Blackwood revealed that East had three of the five keycards, and 5NT was a Grand Slam try, confirming that no keycards were missing and that trump were adequate. With his solid clubs it was easy for East to bid the Grand.

So the East-West partnership that scored 2140 were quite surprised to gain 17 imps. Their other pair had made life very difficult with some risky intervention. The North hand is hardly worth a 1S overcall on any method of evaluation, so our hero took advantage of the vulnerability to make a weak jump overcall of the opening 1D. 2S used up a lot of space, and the intervention changed the meaning of a jump shift: in competition the jump becomes a Fit Bid, showing clubs and diamonds. East might have tried 4C anyway, but that would leave little room for investigation, so he bid a forcing 3C instead. Now South got involved. Rather than simply raise partner’s spades he bid 3H as a kind of Fit non-jump, suggesting a heart lead against a diamond contract. West had nothing to say over that. North converted to 3S and East doubled to show extra strength. West bid 4D and East raised to game, each partner fearing that there were two losers in the major they did not personally guard.

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