[Helmer]

Scoring: IMP

---

Well, I opened: 1 ♠ (Thought it was too strong for 2 ♠)

Opponent: 2 ♦

Partner: 2 ♥ (Which I thought was non-forcing)

I re-bid my spades: 2 ♠

Partner: 4 NT

I answered 1 key-card: 5 ♦

Partner: 5 ♥

What now? - Is it to play, or.......

Thanks for any comments.


*********************

Partners hand:





Kx
AQ10xx
x
AQJxx

[cherdano]

2♥ is forcing.

[goobers]

Helmer, on Aug 8 2007, 11:11 AM, said:

Partner: 5 ♥

What now? - Is it to play, or.......

Thanks for any comments.

When you say you answered keycard, I assume you meant spades had been set as trump, which means 5H is not to play, but a Q ask.

[ralph23]

4NT was keycard in your system I assume and implicitly set ♠ as trump.

You play 03-14 RKCB, so 5♦ was right.

The next step above a 5-of-a-minor response (when ♠ is trump) is an ask about the Queen of trump. 5♥ was the Queen-ask.

You have her, and also the King of ♣, so you show both by bidding 6♣.

Without her, you just return to the trump suit at the lowest level.

With her but with no outside King to show, just bid 6♠.

NB -- RKCB works best when ♠ are trump. Worst when ♣ are trump. Of course regular Bwood suffers from the same malady. So you may want to work through some examples when other suits are trump.

[ArtK78]

I agree with everything posted so far after the initial post.

6♣ is automatic.

Partner is being rather aggressive in his bidding. Was there no room to explore between 2S and 4NT?

[inquiry]

Typically 2♥ is forcing. Some people play "negative free bids" and their doubles can be quite strong and forcing. Negative free bids are not in general standard, but then maybe in some areas it is not.

It is clear your partner meant 4NT as RKCB, and it seems you took it that way too, responding 5♦, so I assume you meant 1-or-4 key cards. Your partners 5H bid was therefore asking for the queen of spades. You have it. So don't bid 5♠, and don't pass. 6♣ shows the club king.

[jillybean]

After partner responds to keycard is 'next suit' always Queen asking or can it be (by agreement) a cue bid?

[inquiry]

jillybean2, on Aug 9 2007, 12:00 AM, said:

After partner responds to keycard is 'next suit' always Queen asking or can it be (by agreement) a cue bid?

I guess it could be a cue=bid by agreement (anything can be agreed too), but it would stupid to do it that way. In general, RKCB should be used to avoid bad slams not to figure out if you should consider a slam. The general idea seems to be not to use it until you are fairly sure you are not off two quick tricks in any suit. This is one reason why many people cue-bid first OR second round controls up the line. Then you can use blackwood. Also, part of the RKCB convention is that the cheapest bid ask for the QUEEN of trumps. By agreement, a fair number of partnerships promises all five KEYCARDS, but a lot of partnerships will use the queen ask even when one keycard is missing.

Note the rapid use of RKCB on this hand. Responder, who bid it, held...

Kx
AQ10xx
x
AQJxx

So he was certain that no suit had two quick losers. As he held ACE of two side suits and singleton in the other. On this auction, south uses the queen ask despite one key card was missing.

[cherdano]

I agree with Ben except I think it is almost universal that queen ask doesn't promise all keycards - so you can find out when you miss one keycard AND the trump queen to stay in 5.

Edit: Another thing is one should never stop in 5 when only one keycard (or only the trump queen) is missing. This means that any further tries after keycards+queen have been established must be grand slam tries (without all keycards you would just bid 5 or 6). Many beginners make the mistake to ask for keycards, intending to bid slam if they have all of them, and signing off if one keycard is missing, since they don't quite have enough values for slam - only to find out partner has extras and playing 6 would be fine. But partner, with extras, doesn't know whether it was a sign-off due to 2 keys missing, or a sign-off due to lack of values...

[ArtK78]

It is clearly NOT universal that the Queen-ask does not guarantee all of the key-cards.

The convention was written so that the Queen-ask does promise all of the key cards and is a grand-slam try. That is the way that I play it, and that is the way Kantar wrote it up in his books on Roman Key Card Blackwood.

I have never seen an example of a Queen-ask in high-level competition in which the asker did not know that all of the key-cards were held by the partnership. I know that there are many players who play that it does not promise all of the key-cards, and I understand the rationale. But I do not agree with it.

[SoTired]

ArtK78, on Aug 9 2007, 08:42 AM, said:

It is clearly NOT universal that the Queen-ask does not guarantee all of the key-cards.

I beg your pardon, but the q-ask does not promise all 5 keys unless the q-ask is above the 5-trump level.

One purpose of a below 5-trump level q-ask is avoid a 6-level contract off an ace plus the queen of trump.

[FrancesHinden]

ArtK78, on Aug 9 2007, 02:42 PM, said:

I have never seen an example of a Queen-ask in high-level competition in which the asker did not know that all of the key-cards were held by the partnership. I know that there are many players who play that it does not promise all of the key-cards, and I understand the rationale. But I do not agree with it.

I think you are in a minority here.
It is very common indeed that the queen-ask is used to find out if a small slam is making or not.

The point is to bid a slam when the hands are, say,

Qxx
KJxx
AKQxx
x

AK109x
AQx
Jxx
KQ

but not when the North hand does not have the queen of trumps

[ArtK78]

I would appreciate it if anyone could show me an example of a Roman-Keycard Blackwood auction in high-level competition where there was a Queen-ask made by a player who knows that a keycard is missing.

Making a pronouncement that it is quite common is one thing. I want to see an example.

The example should come from the final 8 or beyond in a major North American KO championship or WBF KO championship.

[keylime]

I've seen people ask for queens that show all the keycards, and was also probing for that one critical card to get to slam. It's definitely not uniform.

Another thing is how to respond to a queen ask - that itself is not uniform either.

<a former king of fouling up any form of queen ask>

[SoTired]

The queen-ask is 1 step above 0-3 or 1-4 response provided that is not 5-trump.
The replies are (assuming q-ask is below 5-trump):
5-trump = no Q-trump
6-trump or 5N (some use 6-trump, some use 5N) = Q-trump, no outside king
Other suit = Q-trump + cheapest outside king
Some use the 5N = Q-trump + king of Q-ask suit
After responder showed the Q-trump + a king, if asker now bids a new suit below 6-trump, that asks responder for 2nd round control of the new suit. Replies are:
6-trump = no 2nd round control
7-trump = singleton or void
6N = king
7-ask = king-queen

[FrancesHinden]

keylime, on Aug 9 2007, 03:39 PM, said:

Another thing is how to respond to a queen ask - that itself is not uniform either.

<a former king of fouling up any form of queen ask>

Yup.


fairly standard
After the reply to RKCB, step 1 asks about the queen of trumps, as long as step 1 is not the agreed trump suit (but see below).

This is true whether the "I don't have the queen" reply will be above or below 5 of the agreed trump suit, but if it will be above 5 trump suit it guarantees all the key cards.


Played all sorts of different ways
Here are three alternative schemes I've seen in use (in fact, I've played two of them). SoTired has given another one which I hadn't seen before.

In response to the ask:

Option 1
Step 1 = I don't have the trump Queen
Step 2 = I do have the trump Queen
No other bids allowed (asker's next bid in a side-suit is an asking bid in that suit)

Option 2
5 Trump Suit = I don't have the trump Queen
Anything else = I do have the trump Queen, and I have something useful in this suit as well.

Option 3
Step 1 = I don't have the trump Queen
Step 2 = I have the queen, but I don't have the first spiral King
Step 3 = I have the queen and the first spiral king, but not the second king
Step 4 = I have the queen & the first two spiral cards
[etc]

where spiral cards are
King in partner's first bid suit
King in own bid side suit
King in other highest side suit unless someone has shown shortage in the suit
King is other lower side suit unless someone has shown shortage in the suit
King in middle side suit unless someone has shown shortage in the suit
Same for all the side suit Queens
Jack of trumps

etc

[ralph23]

♣♦♥♠

The ACBL Bulletin has an example (final column in the article).

In this one, ♠s are agreed as trump, RKCB yada yada, then Queen-ask, then Queen-answer = no (i.e. askee returns to 5♠), and asker passes 5♠.

Just prior to the example, another example has a response of 5♥ to RKCB (i.e. 2 KC's without the Queen). THe author explains "Well, we're either missing a black ace and the Queen of trumps, or the King and Queen of trumps; either way slam's not a great idea. So we'll park it in five."

If parking in five is a good idea when we're off a Keycard and the Queen, doesn't it make sense to use the Q-ask to find out if that's true or not?

http://web2.acbl.org/documentLibrary/play/...omankeycard.pdf

If Q-ask promises all 5 keycards, then it must be a GS try. I admit to never having heard of that.... if that's the case, then surely there must be some literature on the web that explains how the Q-ask is always a try for a GS?

NB - Here's an article by Fred on (gasp!) MSN gaming zone. (How the hell did THAT happen????)

http://zone.msn.com/...gblackwood1.htm

Quoting .... (Emphasis added)..

"There are three important points to remember about asking for the Queen of trump. The first one is pretty obvious, but it should still be mentioned:

1. Do not ask for the Queen of trump if you hold that card!

2. Sometimes the Queen ask takes the partnership above five of the agreed trump suit (for example when Hearts is the agreed suit and 5 Diamonds is the response to RKCB). In this case, the Queen ask promises that the partnership holds all five keycards and that the 4NT bidder is interested in a possible grand slam.

3. Occasionally, it is correct to tell your partner you have the Queen of trump even when you don't! For example, if you partner opens 1 Spade playing five-card majors, and later bids RKCB after Spades are agreed, it is correct to show the Queen of trump anytime you have five or more Spades! The reason for this is that the Queen of trump is usually not relevant when the partnership holds 10 or more cards in the trump suit. Even if the trump suit is as weak as:

A 9 8 7 6 opposite K 5 4 3 2

There is almost an 80% chance that the opponents' trump will divide two to one."

Gee, Fred, are you moonlighting for the competition now ?

This post has been edited by ralph23: 2007-August-09, 11:01

[ArtK78]

If you read the examples carefully, you find that the ACBL Bulletin article never says that the partnership was missing a key-card when the queen-ask was made. It just says that if the response is 5♣ or 5♦, the asker can ask for the trump queen by a relay.

As for the example with the 5♥ response, that gives the answer immediately, so the fact that the auction stopped short of slam because the partnership was missing one key card and the trump queen has nothing to do with whether the queen-ask guarantees all of the key cards.

I know that in Kantar's book on Roman Key Card Blackwood, he states in the preface or the first chapter (it has been a long time since I read the book) that the queen-ask should guarantee all of the key cards, as it should be played as a grand-slam try. He acknowledges that there are some players who do not follow this rule, but for the purposes of his book, he mandates that the queen-ask guarantees possession of all of the key cards.

The "rule" that a second Blackwood inquiry guarantees all of the key cards is an extension of the "rule" that in old-fashioned standard Blackwood a 5NT bid after the response to 4NT guaranteed all of the aces and asked for the number of kings (or, in the more modern version, specific kings up the line). I am SHOCKED that one of the posters in this thread announced that the poster never heard of the idea that the queen-ask guaranteed all the key cards.

Fred's article is the only one that mentions that the queen-ask does or does not guarantee possession of all 5 key cards. He states that if the queen-ask takes the partnership beyond 5 of the trump suit, then it guarantees possession of all 5 key cards. Following this rule, the 5♥ bid in the auction presented in this thread would not guarantee possession of all 5 key cards. That is playable. I do not believe that Kantar allows for this exception, but if I can find his book, I will check.

[cherdano]

About Frances' RKCB options: I am pretty confident that no. 2 is standard in the US, no. 3 is standard in Germany.