That was a case where fortune favoured the brave, and later in the same session we were on the receiving side of the same idiom, not once, not twice, but three times in a row from the same pair. These were boards 10-12 from EL Thu 1.00pm Open on May 28, for those that want to check.
On the first hand, after opening 1C and his partner responding 1S, E jumped to 4S despite only having 3-card support, saying to his partner “I’m confident that you have 5 of them”. In fact they played it in a 4-3 fit, but the contract was unbeatable.
Next time around after the bidding went 1C - 1H - 1S, he rebid 4H with the 5-card suit AKQJT. Who needs support from partner with a suit this good?
The piece de resistance was here on board 12 where his partner had opening 2H to show hearts and another suit.
After a lot of thought, he boldly bid 6H - no thought for asking for aces. When dummy went down and partner led the KC, I thought we were going to take the first two tricks, but no. Declarer had a singleton and with 5H, 5D and 2S, 12 tricks were simple.
It’s not that these three contracts were ridiculously difficult to find, just the bravado with which they were bid that left my partner and I feeling shellshocked. So well done, that man.
Out of interest, if my partner and I had played with the EW cards, this is how we would have bid it. We play simple weak twos, and would figure the W hand a bit too strong for a 2-level opening, so would open 1H. E would respond a Jacoby 2NT, promising a 4-card fit and opening hand. After such a bid, opener can show a singleton or void if they have one by bidding a suit at the three level, or show 5/5 by bidding a suit at the four level, so with this hand the follow-up bid would be 4D. E would be happy to find partner had values in a suit that he held AQ in, and would proceed to slam through Blackwood, with just a little concern about possibly losing the first two tricks in clubs.
As it happens, the auction is easier with a 3C rebid showing the shortage in clubs as opposed to the 4D rebid showing length in diamonds. In this case, we’d have the bidding space to cue-bid controls. The full auction would be 1H - 2NT - 3C (shortage) - 3D (control in D) - 3H (waiting) - 3S (control in spades) - 4D (control from other hand in D) - 4NT (Blackwood) - 5C (1 or 4 keycards) - 6H. No room for any doubt, we’d both have a very good idea of what each other had, and we’d bid the slam with confidence. Incidentally, for those pairs that do use cue bids at this level to show controls, I’d strongly recommend doing so to show 1st or 2nd round controls, rather than just showing first round controls.