Both sides vulnerable. South deals. North S: A 10 9 6 4 2 H: 4 D: A 6 5 4 3 C: J West East S: 8 S: 5 H: K Q 10 9 5 H: J 8 7 3 2 D: 8 7 2 D: J 10 C: Q 8 7 5 C: A K 10 6 3 South S: K Q J 7 3 H: A 6 D: K Q 9 C: 9 4 2 The Bidding: South West North East 1S 2H 3H 4H Pass Pass 4NT 5C Pass Pass 6S (All Pass) Opening lead: HK I found this hand to be very interesting. I was playing with Mort Pierce of Chagrin Falls in a matchpoint duplicate game. Pierce made one bid on this hand and became the declarer at six spades. I held the North cards and when West made a two heart overcall I had an easy three heart bid. East bid four hearts and Pierce has no reason to do anything at this point. I bid old fashioned Blackwood and East decided to get his second suit in. This was actually good to hear. If East and West had the "stuff" in hearts and clubs, then is was pretty likely that Pierce had some points in diamonds, which would be good for our side. We play DOPI when the opponents interfer with our Blackwood auction. A double by Pierce would show no aces while a Pass shows one ace. The next suit bid would show two aces. Knowing that partner held an ace made it hard to imagine a hand where he could not make twelve tricks. Also, when you are playing matchpoints you can be a little more aggressive on hands like this. It is not like team events or rubber bridge where you may want to be more careful about going minus when a vulnerable game will be easily made. At matchpoints it is just one board - no more and no less - so I did what felt right and bid the small slam. As you can see twelve tricks was pretty easy. Afterwards, East said that he should have bid seven hearts. It would only be down four for minus 1,100 instead of 1,430. I looked at the recap sheet after the game to see how that would have affected the outcome and I was surprised to find out that Pierce and I were the only pair to bid this slam. All of the other tables were in four spades making six or seven. So the well thought out seven heart bid would have received the exact same matchpoint result. How about that?