Small or Grand?
By Tianze (Tony) Tan
February 29th, 2020
You, the dealer, hold the following hand:
♠A ♥AKJx ♦Kxx ♣KQxxx
You open 1C and partner bids 3NT. What next?
Well, you are definitely going to bid at least 6NT, aren't you? The 5-card club suit can well be an asset and with some luck, you might make 7NT. An average player would either blast into 6NT on a bad day and comment on how lucky he is when 13 sure tricks are in sight, or bid 7NT on a good day and lament about his miserable luck when there is almost no chance to get the 13th trick. But there is no one pointing a gun at you to directly bid 6NT or 7NT. Why not investigate using Gerber? Indeed, for those of you wondering whether Gerber is just postponing 6NT, the right final contract 7 times out of 10, I have included a flow-chart on the last page to show you that numerous chances exist for 7NT, provided that you go out to thoroughly investigate yourself before settling for 6NT or 7NT, or even 4NT (believe it or not)!
Now I have modeled all the possible scenarios just to give you an idea on the chances for 7NT. The decision boxes are marked in either red or green; red means not bidding 7NT and green means bidding it. Observe that there are nine such decision boxes—three of them are green while six of them are red. Excluding the unlikely case in which partner holds no Aces, you make 7NT 3 times out of 8—a 37.5% chance. I can perfectly understand why an average player would just blast into 6NT because it is the right contract more than 60% of the time.
But you have nothing to lose by conducting a Gerber Ace, King, and Queen-asking—you can always sign off at 6NT when you fail to see enough chances for 7NT. There is another subtle difference—you are now making a more educated bet whether you end up in 4NT, 6NT, or 7NT. We normally look at HCPs to determine which level to bid. For example, one rule of thumb is to bid 7NT with at least 37 HCP, but the rationale behind this rule is that >=37 HCP makes it more favorable to take 13 tricks. If so, why not count tricks when you have the tools to do so? In the three green-box scenarios, you and partner have "only" 33-35 HCPs, but you can nevertheless take 13 tricks while the rule of thumb will discourage you from bidding 7NT!
Indeed, your partner holds:
♠Qxx ♥QTx ♦AT9x ♣ATx (T is the same as "10")
There are only 12 tricks, barring the miracle of a QJ-doubleton in Diamonds. Also, note that a proper investigation would end you up in the circled red box, where you stop at 6NT.
What happened in practice? This deal came up in an online team match yesterday. The dealer at the first table opened 2NT, got raised to 4NT, and passed! They look destined to lose IMPs, but at the other table, the bidding started 1C-3NT. The opener checked for Aces and Kings and then bid... 7NT! The optimal contract is of course 6NT, but neither table reached it, and the dealer who ended up in 4NT won 13 IMPs!