[Apollo81]

all red, imps

♠K98xx
♥Kx
♦Ax
♣KQxx

(3♣)-Dbl-(pass)-???

[hrothgar]

I'm worried that a Spade slam would be doomed by an early Club ruff (or a potential trump promotion). LHO opened 3♣ vulnerable off the KQ. He almost certainly has a seven card suit to the Ace. (He he doesn't then you really need to provide some explanation for the opening bids)

6N rates to be our best slam, so its easy to reject a 4♠ bid.

[inquiry]

4♠ would never occur to me as a possible bid. For one reason I would guess we could be +1100 with a pass (they win 5 ♣'s), or perhpas +800 if they can find one more trick -- maybe if opener has an 8 card club suit for instance.

If i bid 4♣, I had best know what I am going to rebid over 4♥, because we all know that is what is going to be bid. I guess slam is too good a chance to go for stick and wheels here, but I would not pooh pooh a pass. I would however, follow richard;s lead and cue-bid 4♣ followed up by blackwood. Like Richard I am thinking 6NT as a possible contract.

[zasanya]

Pass and collect?
4♣ if forced to choose between 4♣ and 4♠.

[awm]

I like pass here. Some reasons:

(1) 4♠ is likely to get some very bad breaks. I agree that clubs will probably be singleton in both partner and RHO's hand.

(2) Slam is actually a stretch with these cards. The ♣KQ are not really working values in a spade slam opposite partner's likely shortage, so we have about 10 points and need about 27-28 (outside the club suit). For 6NT we have 15 points and need about 33. And with likely bad breaks even a slam that "looks good" on our pair of hands in isolation is less likely to make than it might seem. In any case while partner might have the 17-18 hcp that produce slam, he would certainly double with a much weaker hand especially holding the presumed singleton club.

(3) I expect that 3♣X will often get us more than the value of our game. Declarer has probably five club tricks and a side suit trick for +800 our way. I think +800 opposite our game will be much more frequent than +1100 opposite our slam, and finding the bid that gets us to slam most of the time when it makes and almost never when it fails will be a difficult proposition.

[gwnn]

The opps play the misfits.

Pass is your friend.

[pbleighton]

Easy pass for me.

I don't know that we can make slam, I know that we can clobber 3C.

Peter

[Apollo81]

P

Scoring: IMP

3♣ rates to make 7 tricks on most defenses. Spades makes 12 tricks.

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