Disaster Three


This hand has been presented elsewhere. It was first offered in my Daily Hand as an illustration of the utmost in ill-mannered players. [After the hand, after North twice asked "What's wrong with spades?" without getting an answer. Now an abashed South said, "This will be my last hand." At which North said, "You can leave now." These were experts. Or at least they said so.]
I later went back to place it in misfits, not that it's the most egregious misfit ever seen [after all, there's an 8-card spade fit], but I felt it was bid as a misfit. Then I decided that another South's five-heart bid wasn't so likely to indicate an insistence on his suit being trump so much as a slam try, and so I placed it under Sucker's Slams (with 17 hcp's opposite what South read as an opening bid strength). So here is another instance where the bidding -- and the strong predilection toward slam -- took the pair toward a truly bizarre final contract.
Q J 9 7 6 2
7 6
J 3 2
K Q
K 5 A 4 3
9 3 10 8 2
A Q 10 9 8 7 5 4
J 9 8 7 6 5 4 2 ------
10 8
A K Q J 5 4
K 6
A 10 3 Vul: N-S

WestNorthEastSouth
1
4 4 Pass 4 NT
Pass 5 Pass 5 NT
Pass 6 Pass 7 NT
Dbl Allpass

In another sequence, West bid three clubs, allowing North to bid 3 spades, and the absence of any vector toward slam would have been a little more obvious. Here North was saddled with keeping his mouth shut or chancing a four-level bid on a modest 6-card spade suit and 9 hcp's without knowledge that his partner has any spades. So South has, well, greater reason to suspect slam than on a 3 spade bid. Greater, yes, but enough reason to think slam? I would say no. North certainly doesn't have to be promising more than opening bid strength.
South has to take into account that North might even be a point or two shy of an opening big but feel his hand is too good to pass. And certainly he isn't promising more than an opening bid. So South should have let well enough alone. South's running heart suit makes his hand a little stronger than a spotty 17 hcp's, yes, but not that much that you can overcome a minimum opening bid in the North position.
If you've got 30 hcp's between you and they've got 10 hcp's, you may have a running heart suit, but they've still got 10 hcp's and the opening lead. Of course, Roman Key Card Blackwood seemed to uncover all the necessary aces and kings, as 5 clubs, signifying either 0 or 3 aces, meant the former to North, the latter to South, with the upshot that they had a disaster on their hands.
I might also suggest that an expert might recognize that he simply doesn't have the tickets -- 9 hcp's? -- for a four level bid in a suit not known to be a good fit with partner, and instead of going for 10 tricks on no knowledge of a fit, he might well have chanced a double and gone for four tricks (maybe more) in clubs.