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Ask the right question.

If you want to find out the right answer, then you should ask the right question! Strangely, that should not have stopped most pairs from finding the right contract with today’s deal….but next time it might!

 

1 promised at least 5 hearts and 2NT was Jacoby, promising 4+ card heart support and at least game values. The 3 reply showed specifically a singleton diamond. Where to from here? We are playing Teams.

20 hcp, a side-suit void, two powerful side-suits and reasonable trumps. We are going places! So, what is left to find out? Surely the singleton diamond opposite AKQ76 can take care of any possible spade losers we may have while club losers can be ruffed in dummy if we have not got enough diamond discards for them?

All we need to know is whether our partner’s hearts are headed by K and Q. So, reach for the 4NT card…but no! Say partner has one Key Card which happens to be the A. Then, the grand-slam becomes much less appealing. Also, unless partner started off with 6+ hearts, we do care whether they hold the Q.

Key Card will solve the second problem but not the first. Dig deep because it is probably a good while since you used Exclusion Key Card Blackwood. If 4 over 3 is a cue-bid, as it should be, then 5 will by implication show a void club but asks about all Key Cards except the ace of the suit bid, clubs. Made to measure though it is handy to know what the responses mean.

While in answer to Key Card, the first step is often played as showing 1 or 4, in answer to “Exclusion Key Card”, it is better to start in the more traditional way with 0 or 3 as the bidding will often escalate as here.

So, East bids 5 and gets a 5 response, confirming West holds K. Now, 5 asks about the missing Q. Again, for a little used convention, one should know how to show Q and maybe side-suit kings at the same time.

If a return to the trump suit (6) denies holding Q, then any other response can show it. So, here, holding no outside king but holding Q, West can bid 5NT since the bid of a suit shows the king of that suit. There are other methods here. It’s just handy if you and your partner agree on one.

So, in getting the 5NT response, East can go straight to 7:

 

Whatever the lead and whatever is the trump break, West can count 4 spade, 5 heart, 3 diamond and 1 club trick. Since we are playing Teams, there is absolutely no advantage in playing 7NT (apart from a very freaky break in a side-suit… but if the Q say was missing, 7NT would be a very sad contract!)

You can see from the above that this time you did not need to use Exclusion Key Card to find out what you needed to know. A standard Roman Key Card question would have been answered 5, 2 key cards and the Q. “No further questions, my Lord! 7"!

Yet, only half the 24 East-West pairs made it to grand slam. Without the use of Jacoby, it may have been harder to set hearts as trumps below the game level…but by no means impossible:

                  West                          East

                  1                               1   (if you want to agree hearts, do not cramp

                                                           the auction by bidding 2D: you are “the

                                                            boss here!)

                 2                                2   4^th suit, game -forcing

                 3                                3    

                 4 cue or 4                      and you can now at least use 4NT

Exclusion Key Card Blackwood will rarely be used but could have been vital here had West not held the A. If you do not ask the right question (you do not care about A), then you may not get a meaningful answer.

Richard Solomon

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