Balanced hands have eternal losers

[Photo/China Daily]

Fran Lebowitz said, "Food is an important part of a balanced diet."

As mentioned yesterday, it usually pays to be circumspect when you are thinking about a slam with a balanced hand. Your losers tend to hang around. With two balanced hands, go with the combined point-count guidelines: 33 for a small slam and 37 for grand (if the three missing points are not a king). With an unbalanced hand opposite a balanced collection, it can be difficult to judge unless the unbalanced hand holder can count winners.

This deal was played 15 times at Bridge Base Online. Nine of the North-South pairs reached seven diamonds. In this auction, which was popular, North's four-club response was a splinter bid, showing a big diamond fit, game-going values or better and at most one club. South immediately launched Roman Key Card Blackwood, taking the reasonable gamble that North had a spade control. When North showed the three missing aces, South invited seven. After North denied a side-suit king, South should have passed, but went on to seven diamonds.

Yes, seven diamonds had play, being all on the spade finesse. Here it lost－luckily or unluckily, depending on where one was sitting.

Five pairs were in six diamonds, three of them after suffering interference from West. One pair stopped in four no-trump after South opened two no-trump, and North raised to four no-trump. (Presumably this partnership had no way to describe North's hand. Do you?)

This is the key rule: Only bid a slam on a finesse when that finesse is working!