[Liversidge]

If you don't hold the trump ace, it ever right to initiate slam cue bidding rather than Blackwood or some other ace asking bid?

[Stephen Tu]

Absolutely, sometimes partner holds the trump ace. And sometimes you have enough for 12 tricks and the opponents get one trick with the trump ace. Cue bidding usually is done prior to Blackwood / RKC.

Usually one cue bids to:
1. Show extra values and slam interest.
or
2. Cooperate with partner who has shown extra values and slam interest
and
3. locate potential suits where you might have 2 losers (ace and king).

One normally ace asks when you have *already* determined:
- combined strength of hands is likely enough to generate 12 tricks (between combined high card and distributional strength)
- you have at least 2nd round control of each unbid side suit
- you are the one that can confidently count tricks and place the contract after asking keycards. (sometimes it is better to cue bid and induce partner to bid keycard instead, as he will be able to count tricks better).

Think of ace/keycard asking bids as slam *avoidance* tools, you have made up mind to bid slam but want to apply the brakes if you find missing 2 keycards, or say a keycard and the trump Q.

[The_Badger]

Liversidge, on 2016-September-05, 02:38, said:

If you don't hold the trump ace, it ever right to initiate slam cue bidding rather than Blackwood or some other ace asking bid?

hi Liversidge,

And how about the trump king, queen, and occasionally the jack, I ask? Or missing an ace, king, queen in a sidesuit? All these might matter in the grand scheme of things.

Stephen Tu's reply sums up the general rules for cuebidding. All I would add to that is that when you have found a fit and slam is likely - and that's usually beyond 2NT if using an unlimited Jacoby 2NT force (4+ major suit trump support) - you have to try to decide the likely sequence of cue bids you would use.

Obviously it is more awkward if the fit is found at the 3 or 4 level as bidding space is limited.

The trump ace is a good card, but it's not a necessity to bid a good slam.

[helene_t]

The situations in which you have to choose between control bids and blackwood are when there is no space for cuebidding below 4NT, as in
1♠-(4♥)-4♠-(pass)
?

Here you can chose to cuebid if there is a particular suit you are worried about having two quick loser in, while you are reasonably confident that you have enough keycards. Something like
♠KQJxxx
♥xx
♦AKxxx
♣ void

would be a 5♣ bid rather than 4NT. On a bad day you are missing two aces but that risk is small compared to the risk of partner showing one ace and you bidding slam with opps having two quick tricks in hearts.

[Liversidge]

helene_t, on 2016-September-05, 05:08, said:

The situations in which you have to choose between control bids and blackwood are when there is no space for cuebidding below 4NT, as in
1♠-(4♥)-4♠-(pass)
?

Here you can chose to cuebid if there is a particular suit you are worried about having two quick loser in, while you are reasonably confident that you have enough keycards. Something like
♠KQJxxx
♥xx
♦AKxxx
♣ void

would be a 5♣ bid rather than 4NT. On a bad day you are missing two aces but that risk is small compared to the risk of partner showing one ace and you bidding slam with opps having two quick tricks in hearts.

What should I bid here:

---

If I bid RKCB and partner shows two key cards, I need him not to have the ♣A.
If I cue bid clubs and he bids 4♠ do I pass? He may have the ♠A.

[helene_t]

Partner couldn't bid 4♥ so you have a heart loser. So if he has two keycards you bid 6. There are many ways in which you can avoid two heart losers even if he doesn't have ♥Q - a club or diamond lead could help you set up a heart discard.

If he has zero you bid 5.

If he shows one, the question is if it is ♠ or ♣. Given opps' silence it is quite likely that he is 4-4 in the black suit making him equally likely to have each of the two, maybe more likely to have ♣A since the more club honours he has the more you expect opps to be silent. There is also the small risk that you have a diamond loser (or two heart losers) even if partner has ♠A. So I would not bid slam opposite one keycard.

OTOH, if he has ♣AK (or ♣ AQ plus some luck) then your heart could go away if you don't get a heart lead and if you do get a heart lead at least you don't have two heart losers.

Bidding 5♣ now would just ask him to bid any control he forgot to bid before, wouldn't it? Or would it ask him for a 3rd round control in a red suit, or for 2nd round control, or for help in clubs? You probably haven't discussed this but even if you have, none of the possible interpretations would help here.

I think the expert bid is 5♠ which partner might understand asks for one of the two top honours in the trump suit. Problem is, maybe he thinks that he needs two of the three top honours to bid 6.

It is nice to discuss the meaning of 5♠ afterwards in the bar. In the meantime, I just ask for keycards and sign off if he has only one.

[Zelandakh]

Liversidge, on 2016-September-05, 06:58, said:

What should I bid here:

There are a few systemic things to discuss on this auction even before your decision moment. After a limit raise, there are many professionals - Andrew Robson for example - who say that immediate cue bidding is not the best option. Instead he prefers Opener's rebid to show a second suit as a form of natural slam try. Here a natural 4♦ rebid would allow Responder to judge very well how the hands fit together. If not playing that you might think ahead to this decision point and decide that the club void is the distinguishing feature of your hand and advertise that directly over 3♠ with a 5♣ rebid. That should show a club void in the normal scheme of things; if agreed it might also ask but it is worth considering even if it is only showing.

After 4♣ and 4♠ the best shot is arguably 5♣, which implicitly shows controls in both red suits (including at least one ace) to go with no club loser. The implication of that has to be that we are worried about trumps so partner should bid positively with the ♠A and sign off without it. Unfortunately this is not the kind of auction I would expect any N/B player to get right as the information exchange is far too subtle and involved. I think Helene's 5♠ would focus in on the ♣AK as well as trumps, which seems to me to be less precise than 5♣. That in itself highlights the difficulties attached to these types of auctions. If two relatively experienced players with similar styles disagree, what chance do two N/B players have? This is the main reason why beginners should generally just use cue bidding as a pre-cursor to Blackwood - cue auctions are by their nature murky and take a lot of experience to unwind. Blackwood auctions tend to be clearer even in the cases where they are technically inferior. Most of the special cases involve enemy preempts or voids and are comparatively rare, so to me this is prmarily an area for upper intermediates and advanced players to work on.

[Cyberyeti]

As Zel implies, this is why more advanced players play 1♠-3♠-5♣ as "how many aces do you have not counting A♣". This is known as exclusion or exclusion Blackwood and is perfect for your hand.

Also in N/B partnerships you need to know if partner will always cue A♥ over 4♣, or only if he has extras.

[helene_t]

Cyberyeti, on 2016-September-05, 16:43, said:

Also in N/B partnerships you need to know if partner will always cue A♥ over 4♣, or only if he has extras.

In general, yes, but in this auction responder is tightly limited so he has no reason not to cue.

[Cyberyeti]

helene_t, on 2016-September-05, 17:18, said:

In general, yes, but in this auction responder is tightly limited so he has no reason not to cue.

Correct, but weak players who've stretched to bid 3♠ tend not to want to encourage their partners, not realising J10xx, Axx, Qxx, Qxx is gold dust.

[rmnka447]

Cyberyeti, on 2016-September-05, 18:13, said:

Correct, but weak players who've stretched to bid 3♠ tend not to want to encourage their partners, not realising J10xx, Axx, Qxx, Qxx is gold dust.

Cyberyeti makes a good point. What these players fail to realize is that opener has a big hand and can envision slam if responder has help usually in the form of a specific control or two. So the cue isn't a request about how responder feels about his hand. It's a request for specific information about controls.

I thought Stephen Tu's summary was excellent. I would add that the impetus for cue bidding is often that the person envisioning a possible slam can see that there may be 2 losers in a particular suit. So that person needs to know that a control in that suit exists before pushing on.

A slight change to the example hand might illustrate this --

♠ KQJxxx
♥ Qx
♦ AK10xx

Here again you can cue 4 ♣. But the difference is that if responder doesn't cue 4 ♥ indicating a ♥ control, you pass the 4 ♠ bid because you know 2 ♥ losers exist. If responder shows a ♥ control, then you can proceed with RKCB to find if responder has the 2 keycards to make slam a good bet.

[msjennifer]

Liversidge, on 2016-September-05, 06:58, said:

What should I bid here:

---

If I bid RKCB and partner shows two key cards, I need him not to have the ♣A.
If I cue bid clubs and he bids 4♠ do I pass? He may have the ♠A.

Can't we use an exclusion Blackwood by a bid of 5C ?(Instead of 4C)

[msjennifer]

If the fit is agreed at a low level a different RKCB can be used if it's a minor suit.Suppose D are agreed then 4C and if C are agreed then 4D can be used as RKCB and 4NT later for Kings.The suit next to 'RKCB answer' can be used to ask for trump Q AND SPECIFIC Kings by using the SPIRAL.
With preagreement cue bids followed by RKCB can be used . Exclusion RKCB can also be used if it is found to be better than cue bids."Josephine" is another gadget which is used whenever found essential ,usually,to bid a Grand Slam or not.

[msjennifer]

DELETED as it was in duplicate of the earlier post

[Cyberyeti]

msjennifer, on 2016-September-06, 03:21, said:

Can't we use an exclusion Blackwood by a bid of 5C ?(Instead of 4C)

You can, but not necessarily in the N/B forum hence the way I phrased my earlier reply, mentioning spiral as you do in a later post is silly here.

[msjennifer]

Cyberyeti, on 2016-September-06, 05:41, said:

You can, but not necessarily in the N/B forum hence the way I phrased my earlier reply, mentioning spiral as you do in a later post is silly here.

Oh yes.I am sorry I did not pay attention to the fact that this forum is for novice and beginners.

[aawk]

The demand to hold the ace in trump for asking aces is a bad rule, so scrap that agreement with your partner.

For bidding slam it is recommended to check if you and your partner control all suits outside the trump before asking aces (or better keycards).

It is more importend to be able to ask for the king and or queen in trump, using RKC (roman keycards) instead of regular blackwood will solve that problem. The differance between RKC and blackwood is that all aces and the king of trump are keycards and you need at least 4 keycards for slam.

Holding a void it is recommended to use exclusion blackwood being RKC where the ace in the void is not counted as a keycard.

To regonise exclusion blackwood the best rule is that it is one level above a cue bid (or splinter) under 5x (x = trump).

So if your partner opens for example 1h the following bids are slam forcing.

3s = cue in s (or splinter)
3nt = on agreement a non splinter (12-14 HCP or any other range on agreement)
4c = cue in c no cue in s (or splinter)
4d = cue in d no cue in s and c (or splinter)
4h = to play
4s = exclusion blackwood with a void in s and cue in d and c
4nt = RKC-h
5c = exclusion blackwood with a void in c and cue in s and d
5d = exclusion blackwood with a void in d and cue in s and c


Another example to show what is possible.

p-2c-p-2d
p-2s-p-3s (3s is stronger then bidding 4s)
p-4d-p-?? (4d shows cue in d and denies a cue in c)

4h = cue in h and c (or on agreement cue in c no cue in h)
4s = no cue in c
4nt = RKC-s with cue in h and c
5c/d/h = exclusion blackwood with void in c/d/h (this agreement is only needed if you do not agreed to also show voids if partner is asking RKC)


For using cuebids and for any other conventions it is importend to agree with your partner when and how to use them if not misunderstandings are bount to happen.

So my tip is study a convention before using and scrap them if the cost more then they earn.

[Liversidge]

Just brushed up on Exclusion. It is a few steps too far I reckon. For partner and me the opportunity might come up once a year and responder is bound to forget. It works better when the trump suit is a major but less so if it is a minor.

[Zelandakh]

Liversidge, on 2016-September-07, 01:47, said:

Just brushed up on Exclusion. It is a few steps too far I reckon. For partner and me the opportunity might come up once a year and responder is bound to forget. It works better when the trump suit is a major but less so if it is a minor.

A reasonable "between rule" for B/I players is to make these jumps show a void and strong slam interest but without the key card ask being incorporated. That adds a useful tool with less risk of a forget and sets the logic for XRKCB in mind (essentially an extension of splinters) for later. As you say though, the importance and frequency is very low so there are certainly other areas for you and your partner to work on that will provide stronger benefits.

[nekthen]

I play a slightly different version of exclusion, which has some pros and cons. After I make a splinter bid, if my next bid is 4N it is exclusion rkcb. This allows me to hear partners response to my splinter before I choose to bid 4N. Obviously, the downside happens when I splinter with a singleton, but if I choose to cue bid instead of bidding 4N, partner will realise that my splinter was a singleton.