Some hands are won during the bidding, some during the play. This hand was a tie for top when it came up at a local duplicate game. Mort Pierce of Chagrin Falls held the North cards and opened the bidding with one diamond. I responded one heart and he bid three spades which I alerted.
My right hand opponent asked for an explanation. I would advise that you only ask for an explanation when it will affect your bidding. Here, East was clearly not going to bid. His request served no good purpose. While I explained that my partner was showing a game forcing hand in hearts with a singleton spade (a "splinter" bid), and the opponents were both informed of the singleton in partner's hand, partner was also alerted to the fact that I had properly understood his bid.
Either defender could ask for an explanation prior to his last turn to bid without providing this reassuring opportunity in the middle of the auction. It is a good idea to reserve your questions about the bidding until that time.
After Pierce's splinter bid I had to decide how to continue. Since my first bid could have been made with only five or six points, ane I held twelve points with a singleton of my own, I thought there was a good chance for slam. Four no trump asked for aces. Five hearts showed two.
I knew that we were missing an ace, and that there was a singleton in each hand. There was no reason to bid anything other than six hearts.
West started with the ace of clubs followed by another club, which I trumped. Three rounds of hearts drew the outstanding trump. A spade to the king was followed by a diamond to the jack in the closed hand. This allowed me to cash the ace of spades, discarding the last club from dummy. At this point, dummy was high with good diamonds and a trump.
What is interesting here is that the slam was going to make even if the singleton spade in the North hand was not the king. If that were the case, one more club would have to be trumped, and entries would have to be managed properly, but twelve tricks were available.
The hand was played nine times. Each declarer made twelve
tricks with hearts as trump, but only one other North-South
partnership bid the slam. The "Splinter bid" was the difference
on this hand.
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Bernstein is
a free-lance writer in Solon.