[awm]

1♠ - 3♠
4N - 5♦ (one keycard)
5N - 6♣ (club king)
6♦

How would you play 6♦? How standard do you think your interpretation is (say you are playing with an "expert" partner without specific discussion of this sequence)?

[jdonn]

It's clearly a bid that asks, not shows. What sense does it make to ask how many keycards, ask for the trump queen, ask about kings, then all of a sudden show a king?

That doesn't mean you require that particular card for a grand. It just means it's the next important card you were missing. Partner is still allowed to bid the grand without it if he has another source of tricks or reason to think it would make.

[mike777]

I play it shows the KD and promises all the keycards.

Granted this auction sounds extremely rare given many do not play 3s as limit or forcing raise and there was no 3nt or 4level cuebid.

Of course assuming I do not have the KD sitting in my hand I plan to bid 6H with KH. That means partner would have bid 6H to show KH and if looking for the KD.

[Cascade]

6♦ gives partner room to show the ♥K then I can bid the Grand or not. If not partner will know I was interested in something else as well.

Compare this with a bid of 6♥. This does not allow partner to show the ♥K. So partner will know it is some other feature that you are interested in.

I don't think 6♦ is asking for the ♦K or showing it. It is just asking partner if he has anything else with some emphasis on the ♥K.

Perhaps with this interpretation 6♦ asks for the ♥K and therefore 6♥ asks for the ♦K. But if your tries are going to be that specific then you might as well play them the other way around.

[mtvesuvius]

I have always used this as asking for the K♥, I don't know what the standard is, but I have actually had this auction come up frequently.

[jdonn]

I don't know why someone would play that each suit asks for the king of the other suit. Are we just desperate to have a misunderstanding on a grand slam auction?

[mtvesuvius]

jdonn, on Feb 24 2009, 08:37 PM, said:

I don't know why someone would play that each suit asks for the king of the other suit. Are we just desperate to have a misunderstanding on a grand slam auction?

Not if this is discussed

I think having it ask for the K♥ makes the most sense because you can show or deny it on the 6 level.

[Phil]

It asks. It also reconveys that "I can't count 13 tricks" (as did 5N).

Frequently you don't have room to do everything, and partner may not be focused on the diamond suit. He just needs 'something'.

[655321]

Cascade, on Feb 24 2009, 08:16 PM, said:

Perhaps with this interpretation 6♦ asks for the ♥K and therefore 6♥ asks for the ♦K.  But if your tries are going to be that specific then you might as well play them the other way around.

You mean, play that 6♦ asks for the ♦K, and 6♥ asks for the ♥K?

Who would have thought it!

[Echognome]

I'm definitely with Josh on this one. Logically this can be derived from the analogous auction with spades set as trumps:

...
5N - 6♦
6♥

As it is already known that responder does not hold the ♣K, what could 6♥ mean other than asking if responder held the ♥K?

Therefore, it makes sense to play all the bids here as asking.

As a brief aside, there are other solutions to the problem, such as a spiral ask. However, I like the simple one I first saw from Andrew Robson:

With 1 King, bid the suit where you have the King.
With 2 Kings, bid the suit where you do not have the King.

Obviously with no Kings you return to 6 of the trump suit and with 3 or more Kings, you will be bidding a grand.

[jdonn]

mtvesuvius, on Feb 24 2009, 08:44 PM, said:

jdonn, on Feb 24 2009, 08:37 PM, said:

I don't know why someone would play that each suit asks for the king of the other suit. Are we just desperate to have a misunderstanding on a grand slam auction?

Not if this is discussed

I think having it ask for the K♥ makes the most sense because you can show or deny it on the 6 level.

Hehe, what sense does that make? Can't I just repeat your last sentence but change K♥ to K♦?

Obviously you want to discuss any auction you will use, but the chance of a misunderstanding is always higher for an artificial bid compared to a conventional one, since if partner forgets you had the discussion then he will never get it right. So if you're going to use an artificial bid you at least want to gain something...

Echognome, on Feb 24 2009, 08:52 PM, said:

As a brief aside, there are other solutions to the problem, such as a spiral ask.  However, I like the simple one I first saw from Andrew Robson:

With 1 King, bid the suit where you have the King.
With 2 Kings, bid the suit where you do not have the King.

Obviously with no Kings you return to 6 of the trump suit and with 3 or more Kings, you will be bidding a grand.

I'm not sure what sense that makes either. Can't you easily show two kings if that's what partner needs?
.... 4♠
4NT 5♠
5NT 6♦ (I have the king of diamonds)
6♥ (king of hearts perhaps?) 7♠ (yes!)

And maybe it's unlikely, but what if the blackwood bidder doesn't have any outside kings?

AKQxxx QJxxx A x

1♠ 3NT (balanced gf spade raise)
4NT 5♥
5NT 6♥

Does partner have Jxx AKx QJx QJxx or Jxx Axx Kxx KQxx? Hmmmmm.... You may disagree with the exact bidding of the example (I sure do), but I just wanted to come up with something quickly and I think it demonstrates the point.

Edit: We are off the ace of clubs and I see bid 5NT anyway. Just pretend my example makes sense please!

[Echognome]

jdonn, on Feb 24 2009, 06:06 PM, said:

And maybe it's unlikely, but what if the blackwood bidder doesn't have any outside kings?

AKQxxx QJxxx A x

1♠ 3NT (balanced gf spade raise)
4NT 5♥
5NT 6♥

Does partner have Jxx AKx QJx QJxx or Jxx Axx Kxx KQxx? Hmmmmm.... You may disagree with the exact bidding of the example (I sure do), but I just wanted to come up with something quickly and I think it demonstrates the point.

Yep. I agree with you. I think the method was mentioned for simplicity, but now that I think about it, up-the-line is just as simple. I guess the advantage of the method is if hearts are agreed as you may be able to show the spade king along with a minor suit King in one go.

Take hearts agreed and...

5N - 6♣
?

Would 6♦ ask for the diamond King or the spade King?

Mind you I understand that we all have a problem if the only King we hold is the spade King. Now we have an additional problem if we hold the minor suit Kings.

Anyway, I retract my suggestion, because it probably doesn't add any value over up-the-line showing.

[mike777]

As a side note if 6d shows KD and 6H shows KH the other hand may see a source of tricks with Q and length even if they do not have the other K.

Again I grant that the OP auction is pretty rare.

[Cascade]

jdonn, on Feb 25 2009, 03:06 PM, said:

... for an artificial bid compared to a conventional one ...

What is the distinction that you are drawing between "artificial" and "conventional"?

[kenrexford]

Other than Josh (sorry if I left someone out), y'all sound like a bunch of drunken fools.

Just out of curiosity, here's two questions to answer:

1. If 6♦ shows the diamond King and asks for the heart King, and 6♥ shows the heart King and asks for the diamond King, precisely what is the asker supposed to bid if he has neither the diamond King nor the heart King but either would suffice for the slam?

2. Related to the last point, how does asker elicit the either-or answer? If 6♦ asiks, then partner can accept with the diamond King or bid 6♥ with the heart King but not the diamond King. If 6♦ asks for the heart King, and 6♥ denies it but shows the diamond King, which makes in a switcheroo-asking style (that does not promise anything), that works, but wow is that complicated unnecessarily.

One plausible reason I could see to show rather than to ask is if you want a specific method to ask for a specific Queen rather than either King. Hence, 6♦ could show the diamond King and invite partner to bid 7 if he has the heart King or 6♥ if he has the heart Queen. Of course, then you could equally make 6♦ ask for the diamond King and 6♥, rather than showing the heart King, would show the diamond Queen. So, showing rather than asking might make sense if there was some concern about better being able to check on tertiary controls in the higher-ranking of the unknowns, rather than on either King. That idea, however, also seems flawed, as GP suggests that usually the higher the rank of the suit the more space that is available for cuebidding. Except, of course, that maybe LTTC gets in the way. So, if the theory is that showing as a means of inferring an ask in the opposite suit is the best, or at least easiest, method to handle asking for the queen in the suit that way back would have been sacrificed for the good purpose of LTTC, then great! Neat idea. Of course, no one has said this. Instead, there's weird rablings about answering questions at the six-level, as if that matters at this point in the sequence.

[mike777]

"1. If 6♦ shows the diamond King and asks for the heart King, and 6♥ shows the heart King and asks for the diamond King, precisely what is the asker supposed to bid if he has neither the diamond King nor the heart King but either would suffice for the slam?"



It is difficult to answer question 1 without a specific hand. You are saying opener does not have anyoutside K. I would hope that opener would prepare the bidding better to find out what she needs to know. In any event I would hate to change an entire and easy to remember rkc agreement based on some once a year hand that causes system problems.

Of course if opener has the ck and needs just one other k she can bid 6c over 5d.

[kenrexford]

mike777, on Feb 24 2009, 11:16 PM, said:

"1. If 6♦ shows the diamond King and asks for the heart King, and 6♥ shows the heart King and asks for the diamond King, precisely what is the asker supposed to bid if he has neither the diamond King nor the heart King but either would suffice for the slam?"



It is difficult to answer question 1 without a specific hand. You are saying opener does not have anyoutside K. I would hope that opener would prepare the bidding better to find out what she needs to know. In any event I would hate to change an entire and easy to remember rkc agreement based on some once a year hand that causes system problems.

Of course if opener has the ck and needs just one other k she can bid 6c.

A bidding agreement should probably not be determined by the hand that you are holding, as partner cannot see that hand. So, if you cannot answer the question without seeing sample hands, there is a problem.

[Fluffy]

showing helps partner to valuate ♦Q.

Remember that if we only needed a specific king we would had bid that suit at the 6 level. if we have all aces and kings I think partner should bid grand anyway.

[mikestar]

Asking for ♦K, with the provision that if partner lacks that card, he should show ♥K in case either king would do.

[Hanoi5]

I thought this bid was intended as an asking bid in diamonds to try to play seven if partner held the ♦K or a singleton or another source of tricks in which to throw diamond losers.