Canadian Slams

This post is not even about my slams, even though they are often as bad. A comment I heard a while ago comes to mind on this post. Know why Canadians play the hand well, have you ever seen the contracts they get to :)

Watching a couple of Cayne matches on BBO, against 2 sets of Canadian International Experts, I saw the following 2 hands.

The first, Not Vul vs Vul, you pick up this hand A754 Q8 AK7 A532 and open 1C Precision. Partner makes a positive response of 1S and I guess they are not playing any kind of control or asking bids, just stone age precision, so this hand made a mild overbid of 3S. Partner now bid 4D, cue bid in your AK, making your hand worth less, so this hand Cue Bid 5C. Partner raised this to 6C, so this hand made a grand slam try with 6D, but partner signed off in 6S, passed out. Partners hand was KJT83 A97 J T876. Obviously this hand had very little play.

On this hand, I have to give most of the blame to East after the 1C opener. The 3S bid was a mild overbid, but quite survivable. But I really think you must have a LOT better hand to bypass 4S and cuebid 5C. On this hand, I really think that after 1C and 4S, with partner showing that at least some of your hand is wasted, you should be content with 4S. If partner can not bid over that after the previous bidding, are you missing anything?

The second hand was KQ2 JT73 AKQ87 9, vul vs not, and the auction proceeded 3S on your left, 4H by partner, pass on your right, 4S Key card in Hearts by you, 5H by partner showing 2 with the Q, 6H (???) by you. A Spade was led, LHO took the A, returned a Club, and RHO took that A, down 1.

Excuse me, is'nt Blackwood designed to keep you out of these things, not get you into them? Anyways, enough on that for now, just have to hope some of these people remember to start doing these kind of things against me when I get to play them :)