Slam Dunk
This is my term for those wildly distributional hands where each side has a 10- or 11- card fit -- plus some top honors -- and each side can reasonably fight for the right to name trump up to the 4, 5 or even 6 level. Okay, maybe even the 7 level. I first came to discuss this type of hand under the heading "The Shift in Trick-taking Power by virtue of naming Trump." Rather a mouth-filling title, but I couldn't come up with a shorter one.
To illustrate what I mean, let me start first with the opposite end of the distributional pattern. Let me take a fairly ordinary hand, one side with 8 hearts, the other with 8 spades, and the top cards are divided such that each side can make a 2 bid. The shift in trick-taking potential is then 3. If we get to name trump, we get 8 tricks. If we concede that power to you, we get 5. Should we assert our right or defer to the opponents. Well, vulnerability becomes a factor here. The spade side would certainly want to bid to the two level, and not to the three, for anything over two spades gives that side a positive score, and there's no point in bidding over that positive score into a negative. But what about the heart side? Should they bid up one more? And of course, the answer was already suggested above: If they are not-vul, it would pay them to bid 3 hearts, and if vul, a three heart bid chances a very bad board when those guys are only going for 110.
I am speaking, well, of a theoretical situation. In actual play, of course, we can't always determine the potential of each side so closely. But then, it does no harm to consider and weigh the situation before you come to it. Anyway, with 8-card suits, you have what I term a "modest" fit, and the fit isn't likely to compensate for any shortfall from 20 hcp's, which is half the deck. But my interest here, as mentioned, is the opposite type of hand, where you're both have tremendous super-fits and given the vagaries of vulnerabiltiy, might allow each side to bid reasonably to the five or six level. That's not to say that each side can make 5 or six on the same hand, necessarily, though it's entirely possible. But each side can profitably bid to that level. If our side can make only 4 tricks and your side five with a higher ranking suit, obviously it would pay us to bid six on any vulnerability except that we are and you're not. The shift in trick-taking power would then be eight! If we get the bid, we get 10 tricks. If you do, we get two. And when the shift is that marked, then it behooves you to fight for the right to name the trump suit.
But of course in real life, there are certain difficulties and ambiguities. You don't know what your side can make, nor what they can. So what's the solution? Of course, like anything else in bridge, there's no magic solution which can be laid out in a paragraph or two. Here, I'm afraid I'm going to have to confine myself to two comments. (1) Be very careful to the point of cautiousness when you are vulnerable and they are not. When game is being contested, it only takes down two to make your bid too expensive for what they could make (always presuming a double). Over their slam? It only takes down 4. I might put this another way: At unfavorably vulnerabiltiy, you bid to what you think you can make, to the best of your ability, of course with those obstreperous opponents horning in, trying to disrupt your ability to describe your hand. But if you think you've got the cards, bid 'em up. You don't want to let them have a cheap sac.
At even vulnerability, of course, you've got one more trick leeway. You can absorb a down two doubled, but not down three. At favorable vulnerabilty, you've got still one more trick leeway: You can live with down three. But I might insert a caution here, for I've seen any number of too-expensive sac bids with favorable vulnerabilty. Down three is the max at game level, and bidding over a slam, even, can easily get too expensive, particularly with the adjustment to the scoring system instituted about 15 years ago. If it's a minor-suit slam, down six is too expensive, yes even with favorable vulnerability. Further, we might bring in another factor here not to be overlooked: have they already overbid? If we can beat 'em, we certainly don't wanna invite a negative score our way when we've got a positive coming if we pass or double.
The second suggestion I would make is, when in doubt, bid one more. That perhaps is a bit glib, a bit facile. Of course we're always in some doubt, so perhaps I should suggest that this is only for situations where you really are in doubt and see a reasonable likelihood of coming out ahead with one more attempt to name that trump suit. This is not to encourage "one more" just because you've gotten into the rhythm.
So we have three matters we've got to sort out in our head: How likely are they to make the bid they're in, how many tricks can we garner and lastly, factoring in the vulnerability (and assuming the answer to the first question is at least "fairly likely or rather likely"), how much would one more bid, presuming a double, cost us vis-à-vis what they could make? Sound like too much? Well, it obviously would be too much, except for one thing: it's all just as difficult for those other guys as it is for you. And the goal is not something approaching perfection, but to do a little bit better than they do. And to that end, I would encourage looking at the opportunities grasped and missed, not to mention the too-expensive sacs and the way too-expensive sacs. You might print out such hands and put 'em aside for six months or so and then come back and practice bidding them with three friends.
In any event you get a lot of mileage in naming a slamdunk suit as trump and wanna consider insisting on it -- up to a point.