|
Roman Key Card - Asking Bids
After the initial response to Roman Key Card Blackwood, one of these three follow-ups may be used: - The Queen Ask (usually the cheapest non-sign-off is used for this) - The King Ask (usually 5NT) - The Specific Suit Ask (this is an obscure and rarely used feature of RKCB)
1st June, 2011 None Vul
After East makes a limit raise (either with a natural 3♥ or via Bergen), West is headed for slam. 4NT was Roman Key Card Blackwood and 5♠ showed two Key Cards and the trump Queen. At this point West will want to be in 7♥ provided that there is no Diamond loser. There is a way to find out! It’s a relatively obscure extension to Roman Key Card, and it’s called the Specific Suit Ask. After receiving the response to 4NT, West now bids a new suit to inquire into Partner’s holding in that suit. So, in this case West bids 6♦. The responses are a little tricky and you have to remember that an Ace in the asking suit is already known so that Axx and xxx are equivalent (and equally bad) holdings. So, with the ♦A reduced temporarily to a spot card, the responses are: - 6♥ (a return to the trump suit) is the worst holding (xxx or xxxx) - 1st step (not counting trumps, so in this case 6♠) is a third-round control (xx or the ♦Q) - 2nd step (6NT) is a second round control (singleton or King) That’s a simplified version, you can google “specific suit asks” for more on the subject.
Anyway, those with a Specific Suit Ask at their disposal can trot it out and bid 7♥ with confidence. Those who don’t have that gadget will have to guess.
5th August, 2009 N-S Vul
West’s 4♦ was a splinter and it looks like a grand slam might be on the horizon. Then again, Partner might have something totally unsuitable, such as ♠ QJxxx, ♥ Kxxxx, ♦ --, ♣ KJx. What’s your plan?
It may seem bizarre at first sight, but we suggest 4NT. Roman Key Card with a void, have your editors finally lost it? Maybe so, but look what happens! Partner makes the 1430 response of 5♦, so he has no Key Cards. That’s probably good news, you don’t want him to have much in Clubs anyway.
Agreement 1: Over 5♦ you can bid 5♥. This is the cheapest non-signoff, played by many as the
Over 5♥, Partner would bid 5♠ without the ♠Q, and 6♠ with the ♠Q but with no outside King. That leaves the other bids available to show the ♠Q and an outside King.
Agreement 2: In response to the Queen Ask, 5NT can be used to show the “most expensive King”, which in this case would be the ♥K. The benefit of this (somewhat obscure) agreement is that it keeps the bidding lower and makes further investigation easier.
So, Partner has showed no Key Cards (probably good news) and then he bids 5NT in response to the Queen Ask. So he has the ♠Q and the ♥K. He might also have the ♣K, that remains an unknown.
Agreement 3: After the Queen Ask, bidding a side-suit expresses doubt about the grand slam and asks for help in that suit.
East still needs help in Hearts, he is afraid of a third-round loser, so he bids 5♥ now. Bingo! It turns out that Partner has the ♥Q and can bid the grand slam! Agreements 1 and 3 are fairly common, Agreement 2, we admit, is by no means common (but useful nonetheless).
4th June, 2008 Board 3 E-W Vul
West’s 3♦ was a jump reverse, played by E-W as a splinter, but not game-forcing, it could be made on as little as a good 14. Obviously, East has more than enough to go to game, and we’d say that it is just about enough to make a slam move of some sort. But not 4NT, that would be a gross overbid, and highly unsuitable with that worthless doubleton in the unbid suit. So, East bids 4♦, planning to give up on slam if West now bids just 4♥.
But suppose that West bids 4NT. Playing Roman Key Card, we bid 5♠, showing two Key Cards and the Queen of trumps. Now Partner bids 5NT, the King Ask. But which King Ask? Do you play “Number of Kings” or “Specific King”? It’s possible to construct hands where either one works better, but on balance the Specific King method is surely superior. In fact, this hand provides supporting evidence for that. If Partner shows us the K♣ we’ll want to be in 7♥, but if he shows us the K♦ then the grand slam will be on a finesse. However, if we are playing “Number of Kings” and Partner shows us one King, we’ll be completely in the dark as to whether that King is the much-prized K♣ or the semi-useless K♦.
5th July, 2006 Board 6 E-W Vul
Let's take stock here, for a moment. Our 2NT was the Jacoby 2NT, showing a game-forcing Spade raise, Partner's 3♥ showed shortness in that suit, and 4♣ and 4♦ were cue-bids. Our 4NT was Roman Key Card Blackwood, and 5♦ showed 0 or 3.
At this point we should be thinking about bidding 7. Partner can hopefully ruff out our Heart losers, and we have no losers in the minors. The only possible snag is the trump suit, or, more specifically, the Queen. Can we find out about that card? Yes, one commonly used device in the follow-up to Roman Key Card is for the cheapest non-sign-off to ask for that trump Queen. So, in the auction above, 5♥ is the Queen Ask. Suffice it to say here, if East shows trump Queen, West can take a shot at 7 ... and, if he denies that card, West will settle for the small slam.
16th May, 2007 Board 13 Both Vul
A difficult grand slam to bid with any certainty using standard methods. West tried the Jacoby 2NT, showing game-going values and a Spade fit, and asking Partner to describe his hand further. East declined to do so, preferring to take control himself. His 4NT was Roman Key Card, and the response was “Two with the Queen of Trumps”. At this point, East had decided to take his chances with the Club suit and bid the grand anyway, but first he checked for Kings, as possession of two by Partner would allow him to bid 7NT. E-W were obviously playing “Specific King” and 6♠ showed no side-suit King.
Looking just at the East hand, what are the chances of making 7♠ opposite a hand with opening values, a fit, and two Aces and no Kings? Pretty good, we’d say, any one of these good things might happen: - Partner might have the Q♣, and we’d say the chances of that became substantially improved when Partner denied any Kings (of course, in this case, we’ll be wishing we had bid 7NT!) - Partner might have two (or fewer) Clubs - The Club finesse might work
Obscure Roman Key Card Device There is a device which allows the Club situation to be resolved in the auction. It’s an extension to Roman Key Card, and it’s called the “Specific Suit Ask”, hereinafter referred to as SSA. It can be used in this situation: West East 1♠ 2NT 4NT 5♠ ??
Using the SSA, instead of bidding 5NT (the King Ask), East can bid a side-suit asking about Partner’s holding in that suit. Of course, the Ace is already accounted for, and, according to the definitive Kantar work on the subject (“Roman Keycard Blackwood, 4th edition”, published by Masterpoint Press) the responses are: Return to trump suit Third round loser, such as Axx, xxx(x) 1st step Third round control, such as AQx, Qxx, Ax, xx 2nd step Kxx(x) 3rd step Kx Raise of ask-suit KQ(x) Jump in trump suit Singleton Quick test: After an SSA of 6♣, what is the “3rd step”? 6♦ is one, 6♥ is two, and 6NT is three. That’s right, the 6♠ bid (“return to trump suit”) is reserved for the third round loser situation.
So there we have it, an obscure bidding agreement which works quite well on the actual hand. But not perfectly! - SSA responses do not distinguish between doubletons and Queens, so the better-scoring 7NT would not be reached when Partner has the Queen - You cannot use SSA in the same auction as the King Ask (at least not according to Kantar's rules), so on the actual deal using SSA would give up on the alternative possibility that West has both red Kings. We only mention this device in the interests of full disclosure. It’s not for the casual partnership, and an opportunity to use it comes up very rarely. Handle with care, or not at all.
12th September, 2007 Board 7
West East ♠ AKJT63 ♠ Q7 ♥ A54 ♥ QJ3 ♦ 94 ♦ A76 ♣ K4 ♣ AQJ62
West East 1♠ 2♣ 2♠ 3NT 4♥ 4NT 5♦ 5NT 6♣ 7NT Pass
A very nice auction gets E-W to the perfect spot. What does it all mean?
2♠: 2♣ was game-forcing in this partnership’s methods, so there was no need to jump to 3♠ to show extra values. 3♠ here is normally used to show a really good suit rather than an especially good hand. The definition of a “really good suit” is a matter for partnership agreement, we like it to be a suit with no slow losers, so not AKQxxx, nor the actual holding. But KQJTxx or AQJTxx would be OK. Another matter for partnership agreement is whether that 2♠ shows a 6th Spade, some (probably most) 2/1 players use it as a “neutral” bid whenever they don’t have a more descriptive rebid available. Others use 2NT as the “neutral” bid.
3NT: Showed 15-17 HCP’s and presumably stops in the unbid suits.
4♥: Now here’s an interesting bid! Can it be a natural Heart bid? No, surely not! If West had 5 Hearts he would have bid the suit earlier, and with less than that there would be no point in introducing the suit naturally at the 4-level. No, West is making a slam try, but in what suit? Surely Spades, if he wanted to agree Clubs he could have bid 4♣ (please don’t say this is Gerber!).
4NT: Could this be an attempt to play it in 4NT? No, we’ve already expressed our affinity for No Trump, but Partner is insisting on Spades anyway. East has a pleasant surprise for Partner with that Qx of Spades and feels justified in trying Roman Key Card Blackwod.
5♦: Playing 1430 responses, this shows “zero or three”.
5NT: The King Ask.
6♣: This partnership was playing “Specific Kings” (highly recommended) so this shows the K♣. Note that if this partnership were playing “Number of Kings”, East would show one King, which is useless information, East will have no idea whether Partner has the highly prized K♣, or a far less useful red King.
7NT: East can count 13 tricks, barring awful splits.
20th February, 2008 Board 22 E-W Vul
East’s super-accept of 4♠ presumably showed 4 Spades, then, in response to Roman Key Card Blackwood, he showed “1 or 4”, obviously the latter. What next? Clearly this hand is going to bid slam and the question is whether 7♠ is a possibility. Before 7♠ can be bid we’d like to find out about the trump Queen, and the method for finding out about that card is to make the “cheapest non-signoff”. That would be 5♦, but before East makes that bid, it’s advisable to have an agreement with Partner as to what the responses mean.
Here’s one common set of responses to the 5♦ Queen Ask: - 5♠ denies the Q♠ - 6♠ (or 5NT by some pairs) shows the Q♠, and denies a side-suit King - A side-suit bid (in this case 6♣ or 6♦ or 6♥) would show the Q♠ and the King in the bid suit.
On the actual hand, Partner would bid 5♥, showing the Q♠ and K♥. As Partner would always bid the cheaper side-suit King, that leaves open the possibility that he also has the K♣. After 5♥, West knows 20 HCP’s in East’s hand … AKQ♠, K♥, A♦, A♣. That’s 11 top tricks, with two or three HCP’s unaccounted for. The Q♥ or J♦ or K♣ would take the trick count up to 12, and a ruff in Dummy is hopefully available for the 13th. Another possibility is that East is 4=2=3=4, which would allow a Dummy Reversal, with the long hand scoring 3 Club ruffs to get the trick total to 13. But let’s not over-analyze this, it looks like 13 tricks in Spades is a reasonable proposition and that is what West should bid.
16th April, 2008 Board 9 E-W Vul
Opposite an opening bid, South immediately has slam in her sights, and that jump shift by North raised her sights even higher. 4NT was Roman Key Card, and 5♦ showed 0 or 3 Key Cards (1430 responses). Before you take a stab at a grand slam, it would be nice to make sure that Partner has the Q♥, how does South do that? The standard method is to use the “cheapest non-signoff”. So, obviously not 5♥. How about 5♠? Could Partner interpret this as an attempt to play in 5♠? Surely not, it hardly makes sense to invoke RKCB in Hearts and then to play below slam in another suit. So, we’d bid 5♠ as the Queen Ask, trusting Partner’s unfailing good sense to do the right thing. But we would certainly be a little nervous!
OK, we bid 5♠ as the Queen Ask, and here are the responses available to Partner: 6♥: No Q♥ 6♣: Q♥ and K♣ 6♦: Q♥ and K♦ (but not the K♣) 5NT: Q♥ but no King to show There’s some logic to these responses. We bid the trump suit with no Q♥, and when we do have the Queen we show a side-suit King if possible, or else bid 5NT. As can be seen, there is no way to show the K♠ in this particular sequence, just not enough room available without going beyond 6♥.
On the actual hand, Partner does have the Q♥. Now what? South can reasonably expect 7 Hearts from Partner, which takes the trick count up to 12. South reasons that if the Diamond suit does not bring home the 13th trick and if North does not have the K♠, then she’ll have to rely on the Spade finesse. As it happens, the 13th trick is an 8th Heart.
© BES, Inc All Rights Reserved | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
