Knowing Your System
By Mike Lawrence

One of my favorite themes is the need for partnership discussion. In another of the hands you can read here, I showed you an auction where South got to seven hearts after a misunderstanding and went down three, losing the first three tricks.

That was embarrassing but for me it was not painful because I was not involved. The following hand is real and I admit that I am responsible for its being.

It has appeared in print elsewhere. My book "Play Bridge With Mike Lawrence" has a muted version of this hand.

I am often asked if it is worth the effort to play a lot of conventions. I have always recommended some basic conventions such as Stayman, Jacoby Transfers, Weak two bids, and Blackwood, and perhaps Negative doubles.

I was driving to the Reno tournament with Bill Nutting. Along the way we talked about some special Blackwood treatments. Usually when you talk about a convention, it doesn't come up. This time was to be a memorable exception. Our auction needs some explaining.

We play Bill's two club bid was game forcing which explains why I (South) raised only to three clubs. When North cue bid four diamonds showing a diamond control, I took over with our version of Blackwood. Five clubs showed three aces OR two aces and the king of clubs. My five diamond bid asked if Bill had the queen of spades and his five spade said no. Since I expected him to have only three spades, I knew that a grand slam was against the odds. Still, it was matchpoints and we were playing in Reno, a gambling town.

I decided that I would take a chance. If the spades divided 2-2, I would have six spade tricks, two aces, and five club tricks. Then it occurred to me that if I had thirteen tricks, they would be just as good at seven notrump as at seven spades. This was the rationale for the final bid. Everyone doubled and West led the ace of diamonds.