Hi all
Last night, after 16 boards René and I had collected an impressive amount of 61 imp. Minus! I just sat there and wave after wave kept hitting me. Evenings like this make you want to crawl back into your cave and sleep until spring. But things changed in the last twelve boards, we clawed back 38 imp. Still leaving us at a very meager total of -23.
Is this hand worth a strong 
? It has a lot of playing strength, but it’s just 
. So I opted for 1. René starts the party with a gameforcing 1NT.
13
451. 11-13 balanced, 10-15 unbalanced 4+ , or 12-15 any 4441
2. GF relay
3. , unbalanced
4. relay
5. Singlesuited
3NT is end, but I had a lot of playing strength I had not shown yet. I overruled René’s 3NT with 4, showing a very good suit with strong slam aspirations. René cooperated with a cue, I cued in 
, René continued with 5 and that was enough to launch me to slam.
You can combine your chances of a 3-3 split (or Jack doubleton) with a finesse in . A few pairs reached the slam in but failed due to the bad break in trumps. This 13 imp gain was definitely the turning point in the evening.