[awm]

♠AKJ4
♥KQ9
♦A984
♣T7

Partner opens 2♣ showing 6+ clubs and 10-15 hcp. After several relays partner bid 3♥ showing 1336. My 3♠ asked QP and partner bid 4♦ showing eight. Sign off? More relays?

I'd also be interested what others do with this hand. My feeling at the table was that ♣J would be a huge card here but that I would not be able to find it in time.

[hrothgar]

I would sign off

I can construct specific hands where slam looks to be quite reasonable.

♠ Q
♥ Axx
♦ xxx
♣ AKJxxx

Even without the stiff Queen of Spades (which doesn't count as a QP) slam has reasonable play.

However, there are a lot of other constructions where slam seems hopeless

♠ x
♥ Axx
♦ KQx
♣ Kxxxxx

I suspect that I would have preferred to do RKCB for clubs followed by CABS rather than asking for slam points and following with Denial Cue Bids...

[Free]

I would signoff without hesitation. Yes, partner can have the perfect hand, but we don't have room for investigation while trumps may not split.

[straube]

Sign off as well. I like Hrothgar's suggestion to prefer RKC if available.

[akhare]

hrothgar, on 2013-April-15, 09:30, said:

Even without the stiff Queen of Spades (which doesn't count as a QP) slam has reasonable play.
...

I suspect that I would have preferred to do RKCB for clubs followed by CABS rather than asking for slam points and following with Denial Cue Bids...

I believe that in awm's methods, the stiff Q does count towards QPs. The RKC suggestion seems might be a good alternative to the 3N if it's cheap enough. In our case, it would be 4♣ and assuming we decide to look for the magic hand, we'll likely survive 4N if there isn't sufficient oomph.

[awm]

Not really sure how RKC helps; the diamond king is a big card and you won't distinguish x xxx AKQxxx Qxx where slam is awful from x xxx AKQxxx KQx where it's excellent. The club jack also remains problematic; for example x Axx KQxxxx Kxx is a pretty poor slam whereas add club jack and it's almost cold. Another advantage of QP ask is you can play 3nt if partner is really control poor like x xxx AQJxxx QJx which probably doesn't matter but is always a bit safer than 4nt.

[hrothgar]

awm, on 2013-April-15, 11:46, said:

Not really sure how RKC helps; the diamond king is a big card and you won't distinguish x xxx AKQxxx Qxx where slam is awful from x xxx AKQxxx KQx where it's excellent. The club jack also remains problematic; for example x Axx KQxxxx Kxx is a pretty poor slam whereas add club jack and it's almost cold. Another advantage of QP ask is you can play 3nt if partner is really control poor like x xxx AQJxxx QJx which probably doesn't matter but is always a bit safer than 4nt.

I don't know your full scheme for investigating controls. Playing MOSCITO, if we use RKCB we then have the option to make Control Asking Bids in various suits.

The goals is

1. Establish whether the trump suit is sufficiently solid for slam
2. Follow with a CAB in Diamonds

[Free]

Agree with Richard on this one: if you want to find out about the perfect hand, RKC is much better and quicker to determine that on this hand.

[awm]

When relays resolve at 3h, presumably 4c is the rkc bid. Most of these constructions are "two with" so partner is now bidding 4nt assuming a standard step scheme. This does not exactly leave room for a CAB without committing?

[hrothgar]

awm, on 2013-April-15, 14:48, said:

When relays resolve at 3h, presumably 4c is the rkc bid. Most of these constructions are "two with" so partner is now bidding 4nt assuming a standard step scheme. This does not exactly leave room for a CAB without committing?

If partner shows two key cards I ain't going to look for slam.

[the hog]

Your methods are inefficient. If partner shows a hand with a s/t or void, step should be for AK controls. If pd denies a s/t or void, step should be for AKQ controls. You will find this method far more effective, and it is not memory intensive.

[awm]

My evaluation was something like this:

10 QP is always a good slam. The "bad" case is something like ♠Q ♥Axx ♦KQx ♣Axxxxx where the clubs are poor, but 6NT is actually quite good on that hand.

9 QP becomes much better if opener has the club jack. For example ♠x ♥Axx ♦Kxx ♣AQxxxx is just okay but add club jack and it's almost cold. Another example is ♠Q ♥xxx ♦KQx ♣AKxxxx with no real play, but add the club jack and it's decent. Another one is ♠x ♥Axx ♦KQx ♣Axxxxx which is awful, but club jack gives it play and with ♣J9 it becomes a favorite. Yet another is ♠x ♥xxx ♦KQx ♣AKQxxx which is okay, but add club jack and it's cold.

8 QP will generally be terrible without club jack, but some hands with club jack are good like ♠x ♥Axx ♦Kxx ♣KQJxxx is virtually cold.

With 7 QP you basically need the stiff spade queen and the club jack to have a chance (♠Q ♥Axx ♦xxx ♣KQJxxx); these are probably odds-against.

With 6 QP or less slam seems impossible, and in some cases it'd be nice to play in 3NT instead of 4NT or 5♣.

How do the various alternative methods help you do better? Neither RKC ask nor controls is going to let you locate the ♣J at a reasonable level, and that seemed to be the main weakness of my QP approach. It's true that some of the 8-9QP hands are better than others, but I'm not actually convinced these approaches help you on that. For example the ♠Q is potentially worth more than the ♦K here, but controls/rkc will make it almost impossible to find spade queen. As another example, ♠x ♥Axx ♦Kxx ♣KQJxxx is a cold slam (and some play even if ♣J is replaced by the nine), but ♠x ♥Axx ♦xxx ♣AQxxxx is terrible (even add ♣J and you will need quite a bit of luck), and both rkc (two with) and controls (four) will rate these hands as equal, whereas QP distinguish them.

Anyway I thought the real problem on this hand was "how do I find out if partner has the club jack in time to stay out of slam if he doesn't?" and not "are controls/aces better than asking QP?" but I guess the forum crowd disagrees with me.

At the table partner showed 8 QP and I reluctantly signed off in 4NT. He held ♠Q ♥Jxx ♦Kxx ♣AKJ9xx and slam was on the (winning) club finesse. We actually won an IMP on the board when opponents ducked the first round of hearts and allowed partner to make seven. Considering we won the 64-board match by one IMP, I suppose this mattered.

[straube]

Adam, do you ever allow the relayee to reject a sign off by relayer? We do that (infrequently) and the idea is that we may think that captain has run out of room before learning of our extra goodies (typically working jacks or jack/ten combinations in long suits). Once in awhile I've gotten burned by doing this (off two aces) but mostly I've been right. The idea is that captain is showing some level of interest in slam simply by asking after game has been reached. If we have a nice hand (in context) we may think to overrule.

So for me this has bearing on whether to use QP-ask or RKC. As you point out, your QP-ask leaves room for a 3N contract and I might infer that asker isn't necessarily very interested in slam. QP-ask requests general strength, too, and suggests that captain may not think we have sufficient strength for slam but is willing to find out on the way to a 5C contract.

More important to me, the RKC bid announces focus on trump quality and aces. It also suggests that we likely hold sufficient values for slam, but that opener is concerned about getting too high. I think if I had good trump (having the jack would be a definite plus) and perhaps an ace and maybe an outside king, that I might very well not respect a sign off of 5C. I'm not disrespecting my partner's judgment. I'm giving him credit for having a hand worth using RKC and recognizing that we have limited space to investigate. I think I'd be much more likely to overrule a 5C sign off than a 5S sign off for that same reason.

Btw, very aware of tempo issues and consider myself barred if partner tanks before signing off.

[awm]

Reading this thread is sort of fascinating.

I had never considered the idea that when RKC is bid, partner should sometimes not respect a signoff because he has "extras" whereas when QP are asked partner should respect a signoff. In fact I had always thought the reverse, because RKC is typically "I am looking for specific cards" and when partner doesn't have them you sign off... whereas QP are often a substitute for a general "strength ask" and a hand with a lot of random jacks and tens might suffice. Yet it seems many people play the opposite -- straube said as much in his last post and I think it was hrothgar who suggested bidding RKC and then not going to slam opposite "two with" which seems to imply a similar approach.

In fact we recently dropped RKC asks from our methods because we found they were almost never useful and we would rather play exclusion type asks for when relayer has a singleton/void. Honestly we haven't missed them, but other people seem to use them frequently and in weird ways that I don't really understand (see the above).

[hrothgar]

awm, on 2013-April-17, 09:33, said:

I think it was hrothgar who suggested bidding RKC and then not going to slam opposite "two with" which seems to imply a similar approach.

There are two primary reasons that I suggested keycard

1. I'll immediately discover whether I am missing key controls
2. I'll be in good shape to understand how solid partner's club suit is (I won't be able to place the Jack, but I will learn about the AKQ of clubs)

[straube]

In most partnerships I think it's standard that after a RKC ask, if the partnership isn't missing more than one key card, the asker is compelled to bid slam. Thus a sign off promises that two key cards (or one and the trump queen) are missing. Perhaps that's why awm thinks this is a weird use of RKC and in that sense maybe it is.

The problem for relayers is how to make a slam try in a particular strain. We haven't set trump and haven't the option to cue bid.

At the point of 3H (pattern has been shown) opener could be interested in any suit and not just clubs...so naturally it makes the most sense to reserve 3S as a general strength ask (QP) ask. I think what is wanting on this particular hand is a general try for slam in clubs, but all the bids are reserved for other important uses.

4C-RKC clubs
4D-terminator
4H-RKC hearts (probably)
etc

so I'm using RKC as a double-duty bid...announcing interest in a club slam and asking key cards at the same time. Maybe the responses could be organized more efficiently, but aside from doing that, if I'm holding the slave hand and have x xxx AKJ AJ9xxx I'm thinking that's pretty good in the context of having limited my hand to 15 hcps and partner being interested in slam. Maybe it's on a finesse.

But if partner asks QPs instead and retires in 5C, now I feel like I've shown more of my strength. I have two extra jacks now but we could have a great trump fit for all I know and the CJ may not be important. Thinking that RKC directs my attention more to trump quality, aces and controls.