Bidding low point count slams F.A.S.T.

More Ditties BridgeCast this week from Level 3. BridgeCast is Andrew's monthly subscription service, join him as he presents a daily deal. To find out more click here. Taken from  Andrew's "Rules, Acronyms and Ditties" book which is, providing the inspiration, for his current series of Level 3 daily videos on BridgeCast.

33 partnership high-card points is the accurate guideline for 6 NT. However small slams in trump suits can frequently be made with far fewer – 12 tricks are possible about one deal in 15, yet 33 points are held by a partnership fewer than one deal in 100.

Here are four of the key ingredients for bidding a low point-count suit slam. As the “FAST” acronym implies, you can do so quickly too...

Fit – the ninth (and tenth) trumps are very valuable. Sometimes just an eight-card fit leaves you too much work to do.

Aces – clearly you need at least three (unless you have a void) but also think of an ace as more than twice as valuable as a queen.

Shape – or Shortage. Singletons and voids are of huge value, as are long side-suits.

Two-quick-loser suits – bidding a small slam when the opponents can cash the ace-king of a suit is unsound. Try to have first or second round control in each suit (ie ace, king or shortage).

You open 1 ♠ and partner bids 3 ♠. Which of these pass the FAST test?

(i). You fail the FAST test – settle for 4 ♠. You have just one ace, no shortage and both hearts and clubs are two-quick-loser suits.

(ii) You fail the FAST test – settle for 4 ♠. 5332 is a relatively barren shape and you have a two-quick-loser club suit.

(iii) You pass the FAST test – bid 6 ♠. Excellent 5431 shape, three aces and no two-quick-loser suit. Just go straight to 6 ♠: no real need for any investigation.

West led ♦ Q v 6 ♠, winning, and continued with ♦ J. Declarer ruffed and sought to avoid the heart finesse – by ruffing all his diamonds in hand: a Dummy Reversal. He crossed to ♠ 10 and ruffed ♦ 8 (with ♠ A); he crossed to ♠ J and ruffed ♦ K (with ♠ Q). He led over to ♣ K, cashed ♠ K drawing East’s last trump and led back to ♣ AQJ and ♥ A. 12 tricks and slam made.

Interestingly, if West switches to a black card at trick two, declarer lacks the entries for the Dummy Reversal and must resort to the – failing – heart finesse. Down one.