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Zero or Three?

Zero or Three?

This deal is from the South Florida Bridge Players IMP game. At favorable vulnerability, South held:

bridge card suitKQ9752
bridge card suit4
bridge card suit8
bridge card suitAKQ62
His RHO opened 1bridge card suit. What's your call? 

This hand is too good to preempt, though I suppose a direct 4bridge card suit is possible. I'd prefer to have more strength and less freaky shape to start with double. A Michaels bid with 6 in the major and a hand like this is possible, but I prefer to just overcall 1bridge card suit for now. It isn't likely to go Pass-Pass-Pass.

LHO Passes and your partner cue-bids 2bridge card suit. What's that? It requires partnership discussion, but let's assume you are playing my preferred way, where this shows a limit-raise or better, guaranteeing at least 3-card spade support.

My first instinct is to use Blackwood. Opposite 3 aces you can bid 7bridge card suit and opposite two, you can bid a small slam. You can sign-off in 5bridge card suit opposite one. If you do bid 4NT, partner answers 5bridge card suit showing 0 or 3 keycards (1430). Now what?

Opposite 3, you'd like to be in 7, but you can't bid 7, in case partner has 0. The solution is to bid 5bridge card suit. Partner has to know that 3 is good enough (how could you ask, and then not bid slam opposite 3?). Unfortunately, when you bid 5bridge card suit, partner passes. That means 0, and it means you are too high.

Let's try a different route over 2bridge card suit. How can it hurt to bid 3bridge card suit, ostensibly a game try? Partner signs off in 3bridge card suit--or at least tries to. You're having none of that, but can make another attempt by bidding 4bridge card suit--it is still vaguely possible that partner has 2 aces. If he now bids 4bridge card suit (as he would), you can be sure he doesn't have 2 aces (he would have owed you a control bid of 4bridge card suit or 4bridge card suit). Now, using your mulligan, try the play in only 4bridge card suit:

bridge card suit10864
bridge card suitKJ6
bridge card suitKQJ10
bridge card suit108
bridge card suitKQ9752
bridge card suit4
bridge card suit8
bridge card suitAKQ62

West leads the bridge card suit10 and you try dummy's jack. East wins the bridge card suitQ and lays down the bridge card suitA. You trump, and as your goal is only 10 tricks, you might as well lay down the bridge card suitK next. LHO throws a diamond and RHO thinks it over and ducks.  Now what?

Will you play ace-king and try to ruff a club in dummy? If it lives, you'll make an overtrick (throwing a diamond on the bridge card suitK and leading a spade up).

No, that is not a good idea, as the full deal shows:

Vul: East-West
Dir: South
bridge card suit10864
bridge card suitKJ6
bridge card suitKQJ10
bridge card suit108
bridge card suit 
bridge card suit1093
bridge card suit976543
bridge card suitJ943
bridge card suitAJ3
bridge card suitAQ8752
bridge card suitA2
bridge card suit75
bridge card suitKQ9752
bridge card suit4
bridge card suit8
bridge card suitAKQ62

After East (erroneously, as it turns out) tries to cash 2 hearts, you ruff and lay down the bridge card suitK. East ducks, and now you must resist the temptation to reach dummy on your own. You should play the dentist. Extract East's clubs. Cash only the ace and king (hoping East has at least 2 clubs). Now, instead of a 3rd club, play a diamond. East wins, but has to give you access to dummy. If he produces another club, that's fine (you'd ruff in dummy to lead a spade up). If he plays a red suit, you win in dummy, of course, and lead your spade up yourself.

East had several ways to defeat you had he known what was going on. He had to play the dentist himself by extracting your singleton diamond at some point and then sitting back to get two spade tricks for himself.