How not to bid a slam in 6NT from Ireland Imps Oct28th 2020

 Nightly Ireland Imps Pairs ... this is the best session of bridge on BBO .. 830pm Irish time

2 BBO dollars ... 24 hands with some nice interference bidding on some boards 

Sacrifice bidding does work on some boards

Good morning folks 

Last night despite the BBO blip at around 7pm Ireland time BBO managed to get everything up and running in time for our nightly games. I understand that many folk think they are the only single person in the world locked out of BBO at any one time but its not true ...it is 50000 other folk all banging their keyboards and tablets and mice and Ipads at the same time with the same problem. Eventually BBO will solve the issues ....last night the cleaning person pulled out the plug on a server in Las Vegas to run his hoover for 20 minutes and we bridge players had to wait while he or she cleaned the room. 

So we pushed back the start times by 15 minutes or so and off we went .. 

I saw a hand in the Ireland Imp pairs last night with a regular partnership of a couple of years at the helm. This pair has many successes at the intermediate A and B level. So lets see them bid a slam. 

North South remain silent ..sitting in awe of their well known opponents

1 diamond goes number 1 after picking up a nice 19 count with a VOID

1 spade replies number 2 as she caresses her 6 spades to the AQ

STOP 3NT goes number 1 as she rushes to tell partner the good news of her 19 point hand

Number 2 opens the kennel and unleashes Frankie otherwise known as Big Dog GRRRR BRRRRR

4C from number 2 ....how many aces you got 

4H from number 1 ... I got one of them aces 

Thats not grand says number 2 we are only missing one but  we can still bid a small slam 

She sends off Frankie again and asks how many KINGS ...

5C ... 5NT roars number 1 ... I got 3 big kings ...

Hmmmm says number 2 ... we are missing an Ace and a King ... oh well ...

Locks Frankie Gerber away and says sure my 6 card spades will be trumps ...

Yikes goes number 1 ... we can hardly play in spades with my VOID ... 6NT she goes 

..........

A club is led and number 1 attempts to count 12 tricks .... and can only find about 10 

..........................

So what went wrong ...

1. They only had 30 points 

2. They were missing an Ace and a King 

3. One had a VOID in partners main suit 

4. They had no trump fit 

5. They never met my friend Sally Dawson  from Fitzwilliam ......she says 

"Plus in part score beats down in slam or even plus in game gets a game bonus" 

After dropping 28 imps on the first 3 boards our intrepid pair did well to end up on only minus 10 imps after 24 hands ..

There was no hurry on the above board ... spade void should slow things down 

1D 1S 

2H 3S

3N 

2H shows 17+ so thats the 19 hcp taken care of 

3S shows 6 card spades ..no good opposite void ...also no other suit or secondary diamond support

Thus better stop in 3NT having shown all our stuff and got no good news ..

Leave Frankie in the kennel