{"id":45568,"date":"2023-08-30T14:31:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-30T14:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/?p=45568"},"modified":"2025-03-04T19:47:31","modified_gmt":"2025-03-04T19:47:31","slug":"my-first-bid-slam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/?p=45568","title":{"rendered":"My first slam: 4NT asking for aces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/IMG_8317-2-scaled.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-45569 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/08\/IMG_8317-2-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>Ok &#8230; finally, I played my first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/?p=44977\">real small slam<\/a> &#x1f483;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>My hand had 14 hpc, 17 with a singleton (2 pt) and 1 doubleton (1 pt)<\/p>\n<p>&#x2660;&#xfe0f;KQ8762,\u00a0&#x2665;&#xfe0f;3,&#x2666;&#xfe0f;Q764, &#x2663;&#xfe0f;AK<\/p>\n<p>My partner has 17 hcp, 20 in total distribution.<\/p>\n<p>&#x2660;&#xfe0f;J,\u00a0&#x2665;&#xfe0f;AKQ42,\u00a0&#x2666;&#xfe0f;AK92,\u00a0&#x2663;&#xfe0f;42<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/web.mit.edu\/mitdlbc\/www\/novice-results\/09\/slambidding.pdf\">Slam bidding by MIT is a good read<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>To make a small slam (bid of 6) &#x2194;\u00a033 pts.<\/li>\n<li>To make a grand slam (bid of 7) &#x2194;\u00a037 pts.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8230; some no trump plays<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/?p=46645\">5 nt hands played<\/a> \u2193<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/?p=46533\">2025.1.06<\/a> \u2191<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Our bidding tonight:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>P; \u00a0me 1&#x2666;&#xfe0f;; P; 1&#x2665;&#xfe0f;<\/li>\n<li>P; \u00a0me 1&#x2660;&#xfe0f;; P; 2&#x2666;&#xfe0f;<\/li>\n<li>P; 4NT; P; 5&#x2665;&#xfe0f; which means 2 As<\/li>\n<li>P; 6&#x2666;&#xfe0f;<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>At the 3rd round, I bid 4nt: asked for my partner&#8217;s As<\/p>\n<p>Blackwood <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/?p=45471\">convention<\/a>: 4NT is asking for how many Aces (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/?p=45909\">such as this dream hand<\/a>), 5NT for kings, the reply should be:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>5&#x2663;&#xfe0f; = None or all four aces<\/li>\n<li>5&#x2666;&#xfe0f; = One ace<\/li>\n<li>5&#x2665;&#xfe0f; = Two aces<\/li>\n<li>5&#x2660;&#xfe0f; = Three aces<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8230; 5NT is asking for kings, the reply should be<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>6&#x2663;&#xfe0f; = None or all four kings<\/li>\n<li>6&#x2666;&#xfe0f; = One king<\/li>\n<li>6&#x2665;&#xfe0f; = Two kings<\/li>\n<li>6&#x2660;&#xfe0f; = Three kings<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>My first set of question to Ira the expert:<\/p>\n<p>Conventionally, I should open with 1&#x2660;&#xfe0f; ? &#8230; I didn\u2019t bec I want to give my partner a chance to bid at 1 level, to know her hand better.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>With distribution, you have 16 points. Conventionality, bid s\/b 1NT BUT you\u2019re short in clubs. Better opener is 1S bc of strength and length. You\u2019ll probably end up in 6D anyway but you asked for correct opening bid.<\/p>\n<p>Make it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/?p=45501\">short in clubs<\/a> and hearts<\/p>\n<p><strong>Irene, rule of thumb, if you have opening, by point count OR length of suit, ALWAYS bid your strongest and longest suit.<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>My subsequent questions:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Does winning 12 or 13 tricks but bid at level 5 or below, still consider a small \/ grand slams? &#8230; <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\">Yes<\/span><\/li>\n<li>The conventionally method to bid longest and higher suit, vs bidding low to let my partner to bid at lower level hence to know her\/his hand better?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ok &#8230; finally, I played my first real small slam &#x1f483;&#8230; My hand had 14 hpc, 17 with a singleton (2 pt) and 1 doubleton (1 pt) &#x2660;&#xfe0f;KQ8762,\u00a0&#x2665;&#xfe0f;3,&#x2666;&#xfe0f;Q764, &#x2663;&#xfe0f;AK My partner has 17 hcp, 20 in total distribution. &#x2660;&#xfe0f;J,\u00a0&#x2665;&#xfe0f;AKQ42,\u00a0&#x2666;&#xfe0f;AK92,\u00a0&#x2663;&#xfe0f;42 Slam bidding by MIT is a good read: To make a small slam (bid of 6) [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.ireneeng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}