Blum on Bridge Eavesdropping made easy
	Wednesday, October 13, 1999 By BOB BLUM, special to the Daily News Sitting next to me is Shannon Lipscomb, 28, who has all ready won a National event, placed second in another, and the holder of over 4,000 masterpoints. She and her fianc, Mike Cappelletti Jr., are like family to Connie and me and the couple were our house guests this week during the Marco Island Regional. What we thought we would do is discuss some of the problem hands our partnership held during the week and have you look over our shoulder to kibitz our conversation. Fortunately for all of us, Shannon has the unique ability to recall hands long after the deck has been reshuffled. So Shannon, go for it. Shannon: OK, Bob, let's talk about the two slam hands. The first one we were vulnerable and you held AQ103-64-AQJ-10953 (spades, hearts, diamonds, clubs). I opened a spade and you made the correct bid of Jacoby 2NT, a forcing spade raise. Bob: Yeah, I remember that hand. My cards were plenty good enough to get to slam. It was just unlucky it didn't make. S: Stop, Bob! Slow down. You don't know anything about my hand except that I have an opening bid with five or more spades. So my next bid which was three diamonds tells you two things. One, I have a singleton or void in diamonds, and two, I do not have a five card side suit with two of the top three honors. Now you evaluate your hand knowing I have shortness in diamonds. B: Wait. You're telling me that my AQJ is not as valuable as I had thought. Hmmm. S: Right. Your 13- point hand becomes a minimum spade raise. B: So, the right bid is four spades because I ain't got no extras? S: Very astute, Bob. Unfortunately, your bid at the table was four diamonds, a cue bid, saying you were still interested in slam when you found out I had diamond shortness. After your slam try I thought, holding KJ9842-AJ83-5-K4, my hand became golden. B: OK, Shannon. Chalk up one for you. On to the next hand. That was a great bid you made of six diamonds directly after my one diamond opener with my J107-A-KJ10742-A63. What did you hold to make you sense the slam? S: I held a spade void-K10853-AQ9653-Q5. When you opened, I knew they had a lot of spades. Blackwood was useless with a void because I wouldn't know which aces you had. It also looked to me that a slam might make depending upon the opening lead. So I wanted to give them as little information as possible. We have no sophisticated method to determine if the slam was there. Also that bid put a lot of pressure on the opponents because they could easily have had either a spade or club game. How would you like to come in at the six-level vul? B: Speaking of slams, you and Spike Lay won some Imps for our side while I was sitting out. I got the gist of what happened, but how about giving me the details? S: OK, Spike opened 1NT with K10-A853-Q7-AK1096. Incidentally, this may seem an unusual shape for no-trump, but as you can see had you opened it a club and partner bid one spade you'd have no good re-bid. However, it fits the rule of opening 1NT: 15-17 high card points and no singletons or voids, which reminds me of another hand I want to discuss with you later. S: After Spike opened 1NT, I bid 4NT, holding AQJ8-QJ7-K52-QJ8 inviting him to slam. On the way to slam, Spike bid 6 clubs. If he was accepting my invitation, he was to bid four card suits at the five-level and five card suits at the six-level. B: Wait a minute. Did you have this specific agreement with Spike? S: No, but 4NT is not ace asking so a useful and practical treatment for this auction is to try to find an eight card fit, and we did. The other side played 6NT after the auction 1NT-4NT-6NT. Their result was -50. We were +920. Yea, Spike! B: What about the other hand you wanted to discuss after that beauty? S: Well, wait a minute. It's almost 12:45 p.m. and game time is in 15 minutes. If it's OK by you, we'll talk later about that hand and some others we'll probably play either this afternoon or evening. B: Good idea. Hey folks, hope you enjoyed this stuff as much as we did. Come back next week and again lend us your ears. Till then, so long.