A No-Brainer
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|  Q J 7 |
|
|
 K Q 10 7 |
|
|
 A Q 7 |
|
|
 A K 8 |
|
| A K 10 6 5 2 |
|
9 4 3 |
| J 2 |
|
4 |
| K 6 5 2 |
|
J 10 8 4 3 |
| J |
|
10 9 4 3 |
|
8 |
|
|
A 9 8 6 5 3 |
| |
|
9 |
| Opening lead: various |
|
Q 7 6 5 2 |
| |
| South | West | North | East |
| Pass |
1 |
Dbl |
2 |
| 3 |
3 |
4 |
4 |
| 5 |
Pass |
6 |
All pass |
This is a no brainer, but it re-inforces what I've been saying of late about majors and minors, and anyway, gives me a day's breather from having to think. Six clubs couldn't be made if the defense showed declarer their cards. But what is most remarkable about the 6 club bid is that the declaring side had found their heart fit. But instead of settling in a 10-card major, where the prospect of 4 trump in one hand is minimal, well, like zero, they went to an 8-card minor where that chance of a 4-1 split is not altogether slim.
I cannot understand that bidding, and both partners are to blame. North, correctly assessing slam, certainly should have returned to their major-suit fit, while South has no reason to introduce the club suit, and having introduced it, certainly shouldn't let the six club bid stand.
On a balanced fit, if you have a hole in it, i.e., if you need to take a finesse, or if there's an unavoidable loser, you don't escape that situation by making another suit trump! Not on a balanced fit. Yes, it's mathematically possible to have a second unbalanced suit on which you sluff losers in a balanced suit while you name the first unbalanced suit trump. But that'll be rare. By and large, losers in a balanced suit will prove inescapable whether it is named trump or not. And since it's impossible to tell whether you do or do not have holes in a suit upon hearing of a fit, you'd do well to stick to the basic principle that you want at least 8 cards in a balanced fit, and that if the suit is viable, the major will do you far, far better than the minor. Those times where the major just doesn't work out while the minor suit would have should be balanced against the twenty-times-as-often cases where the reverse is true.
I pointed out in a hand a few days ago that a successful minor suit slam, when a major slam was available, did so poorly in matchpoints that there was a greater disparity between a major suit slam and a minor than between a minor suit slam and going down -- about ten times as great.