[Adam1105]

Is the ANYWAY to show voids in answering p's RKCB 4NT?

[pclayton]

Karen Walker's is the same as Kantar's.

I play this method when the void is unknown. When the shortness is known, then the responses just start over at 5N:

5N = 1/4
6♣ = 0-3
etc, etc.

[gnasher]

Yes. There are 14 different ways. 82% of bridge players think that there is a default way. However, when they use this without agreement, 94% of the time their partner thinks that the default is something else. 99.62% of the time their partner doesn't give a monkeys about the void and just wants to know how many aces they have.

[barmar]

I don't think I've run into any advanced or better players in the US who didn't agree that the scheme on Karen's page is the default. However, less experienced players may be like the OP and not know that there's a common way to do it, so you should be careful before throwing this at a new partner.

[mike777]

Adam1105, on Jun 15 2008, 06:55 AM, said:

Is the ANYWAY to show voids in answering p's RKCB 4NT?

Yes but thank God, 99% of time you do not show it. Just bid normal as if you do not have void.........void is 99% useless if you listen to bidding

[cranebill]

Can you explain why void showing is 99% useless?

[mike777]

cranebill, on Jun 17 2008, 02:26 AM, said:

Can you explain why void showing is 99% useless?

i play methods where I only show voids that are useful; known useful........
It seems they are only known useful 1% of the time.....your experience may be different.

IN any event there are common...easy ways to show a void.....and there are extremely complicated ways also.

easy way:
4nt=bid 6 level =void
4nt=5nt=void somewhere unknown..you guess.
now add.....6 level void =void and one/3 key cards
now add.....5nt= unknown void and 2 key cards


you can complicate as you wish.....

[gwnn]

cause you can't ruff all that much on dummy usually, or pd can have the Ace (and he had already known that you were short), or etc. but this is just a generalization of keycard situations

[helene_t]

gnasher, on Jun 15 2008, 10:33 PM, said:

Yes. There are 14 different ways.  82% of bridge players think that there is a default way.  However, when they use this without agreement, 94% of the time their partner thinks that the default is something else.

This sounds unlikely. If there are 14 different ways of doing it, the probability of disagreement cannot exceed 13/14 unless there is negative correlation between the two, which would be weird.

[barmar]

cranebill, on Jun 17 2008, 03:26 AM, said:

Can you explain why void showing is 99% useless?

Most void-showing responses commit you to slam, they're only useful in helping you find grands. And grands simply aren't that common. If 1 in 50 slams are biddable grands, perhaps 5 of them require the void-showing response to find them (I have no idea how close to reality those numbers are, but they feel like the right ballpark).

The void-showing responses exist because they're idle bids that were available, relatively safe (if you're looking for a slam, it's rare that a void is a misfeature, so you don't usually get too high by showing it), and there's not usually anything better to show with them. I.e. since we CAN show voids, we might as well do it.

It's kind of like all the follow-on bids in Jacoby 2NT. Most of the time you just end up in game, but every now and then these bids help you find a slam. Since you're force to bid, you might as well show something just in case it's useful.

[gnasher]

helene_t, on Jun 17 2008, 10:38 AM, said:

This sounds unlikely. If there are 14 different ways of doing it, the probability of disagreement cannot exceed 13/14 unless there is negative correlation between the two, which would be weird.

Everyone knows that bad judgement is usually rewarded by bad luck. Generally speaking, it's bad judgement to show a void in response to Blackwood, so it's no surprise that when you do you will also have the misfortune to find that partner is on a different wavelength.