Understanding Slam Bidding
by Ron Klinger and Andrew Kambites

Cassell / Peter Crawley, £9.99, ISBN 0 0304 36615 3

It has often been said that if you never bid slams at all you would be much better off in the long run. Maybe so, but that should not stop any ambitious pair from aiming for as much sophistication as possible when the smell of a slam is in the air, and in this day and age there are a zillion gadgets which can help you do just that.

Klinger and Kambites are a well established double-act and in their latest offering they take the reader through most of the conventions played by the top pairs, but they never for one moment give up on the idea that the most abiding attribute of good bidding is common sense! Indeed the first chapter dwells on this topic alone. Suppose you hold:

-   A 9   K J 10 3 2   A J 7 5 3 2

and hear 1 from partner, double from the next hand. What do you do? It would be difficult to find out if there are any 'slow' losers in clubs and maybe a slam depends upon the lead. Or maybe the opponents have a cheap sacrifice. Bid 6d and sit back and see what happens. For the record, partner held:

Q 6   K 8 3   A Q 9 7 5 4   10 4

There are two very informative chapters on cue-bidding, highlighting the principles that a cue-bid can only exist when you have agreed a trump suit either explicitly or implicitly, and you are in a game-forcing situation. And of course both sides of the partnership have to be aware when there is enough information available to make a rational decision as to the viability or otherwise of a slam. It is often the negative inferences which are just as important as the positive ones.

As you might expect, there is a complete chapter on Roman Key-Card Blackwood but if you thought you knew everything there is to know about this most popular convention, then think again! Sometimes you can investigate a slam but chicken out at the five-level and sometimes even that can be too high. Because of this, it makes sense to use 3NT as RKCB in certain auctions where there can be no practical use for that bid in a natural sense. This is invariably when a major has been bid and strongly supported as in the following sequence: 1 - 1 - 3 - 3NT. Make up the hand where 3NT is natural, I dare you. Much better to have it as ace asking.

Also, RKCB can be awkward when the agreed suit is a minor, particularly clubs, because the 5 response might take you too high. (Which is why some players reverse the accepted meaning of 5 and 5.) So one of the ideas currently gaining popularity is if a minor-suit has been bid and raised to the two or three level, then an immediate bid of four of the minor is RKCB; and if a minor suit has been bid and raised to the four-level, then the cheapest bid available is RKCB and not a cue-bid.

Of course the book covers Exclusion RKCB, or Voidwood, and the many uses of splinter bids in helping to understand whether the hands fit well or not, and there is some useful advice on coping with enemy pre-emption when you have a big hand.

This book has lots of ideas, new and old, and while at times I had a sense of déjà vu, there was enough new stuff to keep my attention to the end. But I must repeat that there is no substitute for common sense and good old gut-feeling.

Dave Huggett

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