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English 59 The 52nd International Tel Aviv Festival (3) Ram Soffer One of the more entertaining Israeli pairs, and members of the Israeli Senior team for the 2018 European championship in Ostend are Micha Mark – Yuval Lubinski. The following two deals have one thing in common: a daring bid of seven spades by Yuval Lubinski. The first one appeared during the first round of the IMP (Butler) Pairs: Board 6. Dealer East, Vul E/W ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ AQJ85 K4 AKQJT8 - ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 942 QJ987 53 T98 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ 6 T532 9642 AK62 ♠ ♥ ♦ ♣ KT73 A6 7 QJ7543 West North East South Lubinski Mark Pass 1♣ Pass 1♠ Pass 2♠ Pass 4 ♦ Pass 4♠ Pass 4NT Pass 5 ♥ Pass 6NT Dbl Pass Pass 7♠ All Pass Once South decides to open his ten-count, North starts thinking about a grand slam. There is a convention which would easily get you there, and it’s called Exclusion Keycard Blackwood (often referred to as “exclusion”). Suppose North bids five clubs at his second turn (right after South supported spades). Having found a major suit fit, it doesn’t make much sense that North would like to play five clubs, and even if he did he would be able to find a slower route to five clubs Playing Exclusion, five clubs would ask for South’s number of keycards, excluding the club ace. The responses are in steps. After a two-keycard response (five spades) showing the king of spades and the ace of hearts, a grand slam is virtually guaranteed. Unfortunately, Lubinski-Mark don’t use this handy convention. At the table North tried to find out about partner’s heart ace by bidding 4 ♦ . However, his partner thought 4 ♦ was showing a singleton (!), and didn’t like his hand in view of the duplicated values in diamonds. After asking for keycards, North was convinced that his partner’s two keycards were ♣A and ♠K (after all, his partner skipped the opportunity to bid four hearts), so he was able to “count” twelve top tricks in 6NT. Had East waited in ambush with his ♣AK, misery would have prevailed. Alas, East was