[ralph23]

ArtK78, on Aug 9 2007, 12:02 PM, said:

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.

Huh ??

So let me get this right, on the example.....

1. The Q-ask promises all the Key cards, by hypothesis.

2. RKC bidder gets a five-of-a-minor response, and then makes the Queen-ask and gets a negative response. ("No, sorry, don't have her..").

3. Partnership then merrily signs off at 5, even though ex hypothesi they hold ALL the key cards.

You think that this is what the example shows? The ACBL Editor needs a lesson in Basic Blackwood!!

[ralph23]

ArtK78, on Aug 9 2007, 12:02 PM, said:

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.

No, it only shows (or claims) that it's not a good idea to bid 6 when we're missing both a keycard and the Queen of trumps.

Now we have to use logic.

If you agree that perhaps the article is right, and it's not such a good idea to bid six under these circumstances, do you think it would be helpful to have a method to figure out whether, when we discover that we are missing exactly one keycard, we are also missing the Queen of trumps?

And if we are, we'll stop at five, and if we aren't, we'll bid the slam.

If one accepts the claim made in the column (that it's a bad idea to bid six missing both KC and Q), then it seems that it makes sense to have a convention designed to figure out precisely what we need to know, n'est ce pas?

This post has been edited by ralph23: 2007-August-09, 11:17

[skjaeran]

cherdano, on Aug 9 2007, 07:10 PM, said:

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

No. 2 is "standard" in Norway. I don't know any pair using the queen ask as promising all keycards if you can still stop at the 5-level. In fact, I guess 75%+ of all queen asks are made to determine if you should stop at the 5-level (without) or bid slam (with).

[ArtK78]

Ralph, just because you don't have the trump queen doesn't mean that you should not bid a small slam. It just means that you probably should not bid a grand slam.

I found an article on the net which proclaims that the queen ask does guarantee possession of all 5 key cards:

http://homepage.mac....s/RomanKCB.html

Now, I don't mean to suggest that this particular source is the Gospel of Bridge Bidding. But it does show that there is a significant school of thought that the queen-ask guarantees possession of all of the key cards and is a grand slam try.

[keylime]

I use the form where step 1 = no, step 2 = yes, and higher are yes with specific king (5NT is replacement for king ask bid).

These days I rarely get to use RKC since I use Turbo instead coupled with denial cuebids.

[ralph23]

>>>>Ralph, just because you don't have the trump queen doesn't mean that you should not bid a small slam.

Well of course that's true. Who ever suggested differently? You could have all five key cards and lack the Queen, and slam would be correct. All the Bulletin article sez is, if you are missing the Queen AND a Keycard, then slam's not so hot.

No one in this thread has ever suggested that's it right to give up on slam JUST BECAUSE you are missing the Queen. The Bulletin did suggest that it's not a great slam missing a Keycard AND the Queen.

>>>I found an article on the net which proclaims that the queen ask does guarantee possession of all 5 key cards:

As for the bridge guys article proclamation, you'll have to quote the proclamation to me and cite where it is in the article. I can't find it, nor can I find anything there supporting the proposition that the Queen ask promises all five key cards. But I didn't look very hard.

[han]

ArtK78, on Aug 9 2007, 09:29 AM, said:

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.

I did it just the other day.

[cherdano]

I am very surprised that the bridgeguys article agrees with ArtK78's claim, but the article is generally rather bad. None of the example hands match the bidding, and the logic in example 4 just doesn't make any sense.

[keylime]

Arend,

The article is rather hideous and stinky - in serious need of deodorizer.

[ArtK78]

ralph23, on Aug 9 2007, 12:27 PM, said:

As for the bridge guys article proclamation, you'll have to quote the proclamation to me and cite where it is in the article. I can't find it, nor can I find anything there supporting the proposition that the Queen ask promises all five key cards. But I didn't look very hard. 

From the Bridge Guy's Article:

"In the following example:

North South

1♣ 1♠

4♠ 4NT

5♣ 5♦

North has informed his partner that he holds three Key Cards. However, since North can not show with his bid whether he has the Queen of trump or not, this remains an unknown factor. When South bids 5 Diamonds, the next higher-ranking suit, South is informing his partner that the partnership holds all five Key Cards, but does not possess the Queen of trump. South's bid of 5 Diamonds is asking North to bid the number of Kings he holds, and is asking North at the same time whether or not he holds the Queen of trump."

The point is not whether the Bridge Guy's Article is good or not (I don't agree with the statement that the 5♦ bid asked for the number of kings and the queen of trump - it should ask for the queen of trump and only if the answer is yes do you get to kings, and, in that event, it should be specific kings, not number of kings). The point is that there is a school of thought in the bidding of RKCB in which the queen-ask guarantees possession of all five key cards and is, therefore, a grand-slam try. I believe that Kantar follows this school of thought. I know that I do.

[FrancesHinden]

Quote

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

OK, this thread is proof-by-example (and I've learnt something).

Quote

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.

Kantar, "Roman Keycard Blackwood"
Page 18 (in my edition), in the section "The queen ask after major suit agreement"
"A queen-ask means one keycard, at most, is missing."

followed by, page 20, the following hand:

Opener
AKJ5
A
AKJ854
KQ

Responder
10863
KJ943
32
J10

2C - 2D
3D - 3H
3S - 4S
4NT - 5D (0)
5H (Q ask) - 5S (no)
Pass

[cherdano]

Thanks Frances, I am glad to hear that Kantar isn't thatcrazy. Probably Artk78 had it confused with the 5N king ask (which promises all keycards for everyone I know).

[FrancesHinden]

ArtK78, on Aug 9 2007, 03:29 PM, said:

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.

Red rag to a bull....
I looked at the 2001 Bermuda Bowl & Venice Cup Quarter Finals onwards, which was the first WC book that came to hand.

Quarter finals, Poland v. India, NS Balicki/Zmudzinski
K93
KJ107
AKQ6
A6

J1082
AQ62
104
K104

dealer South
P 1C
1H 2D
2S 3H
3NT 4NT
5C 5D
5S 6H

it was virtually all artificial, but by the time North bid 4NT hearts had been agreed trumps.

5C= 1 keycard
5D = queen ask
5S = yes

Venice Cup semi-final
NS Nehmert/Rauscheid

Dealer S
1C 1S
3D 4S
4NT 5C
5D 5H
6S

North
KQ1094
K8
Q93
532

South
AJ75
QJ62
A
AKJ10

Interestingly, 3 other pairs had similar starts to the auction but just bid a slam by South over the RKCB response (Pszczola/Kwiecien & Lauria/Versace in the Bermuda Bowl, Cronier/Willard in the VC)

[ralph23]

ArtK78, on Aug 9 2007, 01:04 PM, said:

From the Bridge Guy's Article:

"In the following example:

North      South

1♣     1♠

4♠       4NT

5♣       5♦

North has informed his partner that he holds three Key Cards. However, since North can not show with his bid whether he has the Queen of trump or not, this remains an unknown factor. When South bids 5 Diamonds, the next higher-ranking suit, South is informing his partner that the partnership holds all five Key Cards, but does not possess the Queen of trump.  South's bid of 5 Diamonds is asking North to bid the ***number*** {Ed. !!}  of Kings he holds, and is asking North at the same time whether or not he holds the Queen of trump."

5♦ asks for the NUMBER of Kings that the askee holds????

They just gave an example 3 inches above this, where the askee shows a specific King in response to the Q-ask, when he holds both the Queen and an outside King... which is clearly what they meant. But not what they said.

Right below this passage that you quote, they give an example of escaping (so-called) to 5 of the major, and say "The bid by South of 5 Spades becomes the escape bid, since South now knows that not all of the 5 Key Cards are in the possession of the partnership. Asking for the Queen of trump then becomes irrelevant." (Emphasis added).

In other words, they bail out at the five level, straightaway, because they don't have all five keycards.... We teach beginners better than this!! (NB - Missing only one Kcard, they should ask for the Queen, per the ACBL Bulletin article!!)

Bridgeguys are very nice guys, but not very precise in their articulation (or their thought), I fear.

This post has been edited by ralph23: 2007-August-09, 12:30

[ArtK78]

FrancesHinden:

In the examples you gave from the Bermuda Bowl/Venice Cup, it is clear that these partnerships have the agreement that the queen-ask does not guarantee possession of all of the key cards. Thanks for bringing them to my attention.

As for the Kantar quote, is that in his most recent edition? It has been some time since I read the book, and I read the original, not the most recent edition. I will have to find it and see if the one that I have says anything different.

I found an article that states that the queen-ask does not guarantee all 5 key cards:

http://www.fifthchair.org/archive/conv/Rom...20Blackwood.pdf

So, clearly, there are two schools of thought. Some partnerships state that the queen-ask does not guarantee possession of all 5 key cards (perhaps with the exception that Fred set out - that it does if the queen-ask goes beyond 5 of the trump suit) but some partnerships, including all of mine, require that the use of the queen-ask does guarantee possession of all 5 key cards.

Does anyone know how Meckwell play this? Or if they even use RKCB?

[neilkaz]

Why should Queen ask guarantee all 5 key cards ? Sometimes there's room to ask for it and stay at the level if missing the Q ? Sometimes you need to find PD with the Q to have good play for a Small Slam.

[ralph23]

ArtK78, on Aug 9 2007, 01:39 PM, said:

So, clearly, there are two schools of thought.

Well .... maybe it's clear to you. If so, that's great. I don't know that it's at all clear to the rest of us.

But putting that aside.....what's the virtue of the BridgeGuys school of thought, compared to the Kantar-Fred-Bridge Bulletin school of thought?

The K-F-BB school allows us
(1) to stop at 5 when we lack both a keycard and the Queen,

and also allows us

(2) to still explore for 6 by using the Q-ask, when missing one KCard, and to decide on 5 vs. 6 based on the presence/absence of her majesty.

As I understand the Bridgeguys school, you can't do (2), because making the Q-ask is always a GS try.

What do you get in return for giving this up? I don't see the trade-off, or indeed any tradeoff.... Esp if you use in the BG school the same set of responses after Q-ask as in the K-F-BB school.

[ArtK78]

One thing that you get is clarity. How many times have you heard the phrase "Key-Card Blackwood Disaster?" I have seen it so many times in the bridge literature that it makes you wonder if players ever discuss their agreements.

For example, if you get a 5♣ or 5♦ response to 4NT, do you know if your partner has 0/3 key cards or 1/4 key cards? How? By the strength shown by his previous bidding? There are dozens of examples in the bridge literature of responder assuming that his partner has 3 or 4 key cards rather than 0 or 1, leaping to a grand slam and going down 3 tricks doubled.

There is a very simple solution to this problem that few partnerships use. ALWAYS assume the lower number of key cards shown by the bid and sign off if the partnership does not have enough key cards for slam opposite the lower number of key cards shown by the response. If partner has the higher number of key cards, he MUST bid again - and he does so by answering the next query in the RKCB order as if you had relayed (which would always be the queen-ask).

If partner has the higher number of key cards and you do not belong in slam, then you should not have bid 4NT in the first place.

So, back to the original point. If one has the agreement that the use of the queen-ask guarantees possession of all 5 key cards, there can be no misunderstanding of how high the partnership can bid. This gives responder the right to leap to a grand slam if he can count 13 tricks on the assumption that the partnership has all of the key cards. There is no ambiguity.

I can see the point in the agreement that the queen-ask does not guarantee possession of all of the key cards. I suspect that the number of times a slam decision depends on the knowledge that your side does or does not have the trump queen after you discover that you are missing a key card is small. Note that on the hands shown from the Bermuda Bowl/Venice Cup, a number of partnerships did not bother using the queen-ask. They just bid slam. Perhaps they had the agreement that the queen-ask guaranteed all of the key cards and, since they were off a key card, they could not ask.

[ralph23]

>>>So, back to the original point.

Yes, indeed. That would be good. Let's stick to the point at issue....

>>>If one has the agreement that the use of the queen-ask guarantees possession of all 5 key cards, there can be no misunderstanding of how high the partnership can bid.

The K-F-BB school has the agreement (implicitly) that the Q-ask guaratees either 4 or 5 keycards, doesn't it? I.e no one's using the Q-ask if the partnership only has 3,2 or 1 keycards.

Would you agree with that proposition?

This post has been edited by ralph23: 2007-August-09, 14:35

[ArtK78]

ralph23, on Aug 9 2007, 03:34 PM, said:

The K-F-BB school has the agreement (implicitly) that the Q-ask guaratees either 4 or 5 keycards, doesn't it? I.e no one's using the Q-ask if the partnership only has 3,2 or 1 keycards.

Would you agree with that proposition?

Sure. I make it a habit of not bidding slams off 2 or more key cards.

My point is that once the queen-ask bid is made, responder has the right, if he can count 13 tricks, to bid the grand slam. Obviously, if the queen-ask does not guarantee possession of all of the key cards, responder cannot do that.

In order for responder to have the opportunity to bid a grand slam with the knowledge that the partnership has all of the key cards, the asker is going to have to convey that knowledge to responder. Suppose he doesn't do that? Suppose, after getting a positive response to the queen-ask, the asker just signs off in a small slam, without bidding 5NT or some other follow-up bid confirming possession of all the key cards. Responder, with undisclosed trick taking potential, never has the opportunity to bid the grand.

Many times, the response to the queen-ask is a bid at the 6 level. That may be all well and good for the asker, who now signs off in a small slam, never realizing that his partner has extra tricks, and never telling responder that the partnership has all of the key cards.