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Often the trump suit is explicitly agreed, but in a possibly ambiguous situation you might want to adopt the guide-rule "if a jump to 4 could be ace asking, it IS ace asking". For a simple but silly example, if it goes 1♥ 2♦(GF) 4♥ then 4♥ is not to play, but is ace asking in diamonds. If you wanted to play in 4♥ you would make some other bids that did not show diamond support, then bid 4♥. A partnership considering kickback needs to discuss this.
The following is a good method of responses, but I would be interested to hear of any better. Some play RKCB responses, but I don't like the possible uncertainty over the 0 or 3 and the 1 or 4. If you only play 4NT as the ace asking bid you have to compromise like this, but with kickback you have the room for something else. This is my preferred method. There are 5 aces, the king of trumps counting as the 5th ace.
1 step = 0 or 1 ace
2 steps = 2 aces
3 steps = 3 aces without the queen of trumps
4 steps = trump suit = 3 aces with the queen of trumps
Very simple, almost Gerber
What about 4 aces? If you did show 4 aces somehow, asker will then want to continue to bid the slam directly or ask for kings, so if you have four aces, in response to the ace ask you immediately bid above the level of 5 trumps and give the answer you would have made to the king ask (see later).
If asker does not have the queen of trumps, but is interested in bidding a slam if teller does, over the first 2 of these she will bid the next step to ask. The replies for the 0 or 1 ace response are :
1st step = the one below trumps = 1 ace without the queen
2nd step = trumps = no aces
bids above 5 trumps are therefore showing one ace with the queen, and the bid the teller makes is to immediately give the response he would have made to the king ask.
The logic of this is that by making the queen ask, asker is saying she wants to bid a slam if teller was the maximum for the reply. If not, she would have signed off in trumps at the 5 level. For example, if asker has all the kings she needs, and 3 of the 5 aces, she wants to bid 6 if teller has an ace. If he has no ace, she will stop at the 5 level. So by having the ace and the queen, teller is justified in giving the kings straight away. Whatever the king, it is still below the small slam level.
Similarly if the ace response is 2 aces, the response to the queen ask is
1 step = trumps = no queen
higher bids, the king response, = has the trump queen.
Of course while the queen of trumps is normally a critical card, if you know from the bidding (but maybe your partner doesn't know) that you have 10 trumps between you, you can take it as if you did have the queen, as you expect it to drop, and even if it doesn't, there's half a chance it will finesse.
If asker knows the partnership has all the aces, and wants to know about kings to decide whether to bid the grand, she makes the king asking bid. This is a bid of the same suit as the ace asking bid, ie one above 5 trumps. As the king of trumps counted as an ace, there are now only 3 kings to show. These can be shown explicitly, as sometimes it is not the number of kings that matters, but specific kings.
A point sometimes forgotten is that king asking commits you to 6 anyway, so there is no point in asking if you are missing an ace. Another point to remember is that by king asking, asker is saying the grand slam depends upon the right kings being held. The kings are shown as follows.
No kings - sign off in the small slam.
3 kings - bid the grand slam.
1 king - bid that suit to show it.
2 kings - bid the cheaper king.
What do you do if you have the king of the asking suit? You show it by bidding NT. This is the "displaced king".
When you have 2 kings, you bid the cheaper. The cheaper king is the one that can be bid at a lower level, not necessarily the lower ranking. If teller has the ♣K and ♥K when diamonds are trumps, to the 5♥ king ask he replies 5NT. This is a cheaper bid than 6♣. If asker was needing the spade king, the reply of 5NT denied it, so she signs off in 6♦. However, if the grand depends on holding the club king, location as yet unknown, she asks for it by bidding that suit. Over 6♣, if teller has that king he bids the grand slam, but if not he signs off in the small slam.
Of course once asker knows the situation, she is at liberty to convert the suit slam to no trumps if desired.
It is an easy and useful method. Whatever the trump suit, the ace and queen situation is known and you can always stop in 5 if necessary. You can show exactly what kings you have, and you can always stop in 6 if insufficient.
You will notice that there are limits : if partner has no aces at all, you cannot ask for the trump queen. But I cannot remember the last time I had all 5 aces myself.
