This week's hand is from last Sunday's Swiss Teams in Racine, Wisconsin. The story is called "Two losers", or "Yes, Virginia, you really can go -1200".
Our first loser, Rowen, was sitting East, nobody vulnerable. His partner (David) dealt and passed, North also passed, and Rowen found himself staring at:
S: KQJ95 H: KQJT7542 D: --- C: ---(One calls this a two-loser hand--he has to lose the major-suit aces, but after that he can take all the tricks.)
Rowen figured his partner would be unlikely to hold both missing aces (since he'd passed), and that it'd be difficult to find whether David held one of the major-suit aces, so he bid 6H. This is a reasonable strategy if you're playing with someone you don't know--you don't expect to be able to ask about the aces, and you're worried about a disaster (like West passing a forcing 3S bid on the third round of the auction). Note that Blackwood is useless, since you don't care where the minor-suit aces are.
However, David and Rowen are an experienced partnership, so Rowen should trust David enough to investigate further. At the very least, he can show a strong hand with hearts and spades and then bid 6H--when David has both major aces he can probably figure out to bid 7H, and when he doesn't it's no worse than the 6H opener. If they both bid carefully, and the opponents don't get in the way, they might even be able to stop in 5H when it's right.
(Just jumping to 6H is also a good idea when you think the opponents might learn more than you will from the auction--it's frustrating to bid a good slam and along the way tell the other team how to set it. But, on this hand, it isn't an issue. If partner has a major-suit ace, you usually have a slam, and if he doesn't you don't. You don't expect their defense to matter.)
As it turns out, 6H and 6S both make. 7S can make, but is very hard to find, particularly if the opponents enter the auction. And, given what I did, I have no right to complain about Rowen's bid. The full deal, and the auction at the other table:
S : T4
H : A63
D : KT85
C : K954 South West North East
S : A7632 S : KQJ95 Sandy Christopher
H : --- H : KQJT7542 P 1N 2D!
D : Q964 D : --- 3N 4S P 5S
C : T872 C : --- X P P XX
S : 8 P P P
H : 98
D : AJ732
C : AQJ63
Sitting North, Christopher opened 1N (10-13). East then bid 2D,
which the opponents played as showing the majors. (Opinions differ
about how strong those overcalls need to be, but I think everyone
would agree that in this case he had his bid.)
At this point, I bid 3N. It may seem strange to want to play notrump with so little in the majors, but it makes sense: partner is allowed to have both majors stopped. Even if he doesn't, there's no guarantee they'll lead the right major (the person with both majors would be on lead, without having heard his partner bid), and if they get it wrong we could easily have nine tricks off the top. If I keep my mouth shut, or bid something lower, it just means West will get in a bid, and they'll probably find the right lead.
(Yes, it's a distributional hand, but I doubt I want to play 5C or 5D, so there's no need to mention my minors. Also, the opponents are likely to have a major suit fit somewhere, so our chances of playing 3C, or even 4C, are slim to none, and at IMPs I wouldn't want to be in a partscore on this hand anyway.)
When his partner showed the majors, West had a vision of playing in spades and cross-ruffing, so he was undeterred by my 3N and bids 4S. East bids 5S, inviting to slam, and it's safe to say West would have gone to 6S with the spade ace. (He might even have cuebid 6H, in which case they can find 7S, but cuebidding a void in partner's suit is rather risky.)
At this point, I became our second loser. Instead of realizing what was going on (I bid a speculative 3N, they have a spade game and are thinking about slam), I reinterpreted the auction somewhat optimistically (we bid 3N to make, they sacked in 4S, and now East is preempting 5S to make it harder for us to find clubs or diamonds). So, I doubled. When East redoubled, I had one last chance to redeem myself (5N would ask partner to bid a minor), but decided he was bluffing and passed.
Yes, it's conceivable that they would have found the grand without my double. But it's also possible that they would have stopped in 5S, or that they would have gotten to 7S and misplayed it. My second interpretation of the auction might perhaps have been plausible if a kibitzer who couldn't see anyone's hands had suggested it, but even then that's a strange reason to bid 5S, and seeing my hand I know we weren't bidding 3N on strength. So my double (and subsequent pass) were pretty much unjustifiable.
West could have made 13 tricks by ruffing out the ace of hearts, but that would have scored a prosaic 1400. Instead, he took the ruffing finesse (perhaps playing me for a major suit stopper for my bid), and so made 6. 150x4=600 for the redoubled tricks, 300 for the game, 100 for the insult, and 200 for the overtrick, and 5SXX +6 comes out to 1200.