[thepossum]

Dear all

My advanced cue bidding and key card exploration is not well enough developed. However suppose you have the following hand and auction and feel there is a chance of a grand slam even missing the Ace of hearts (which is what you hope) how can you do it wirhout distorting Blackwood. I was unsure what to do. Bidding 5NT using the void as an Ace to cover the missing key card was what I considered. I had no idea really how to bid it. I obviously wasnt happy doing that because it is an inaccurate bid to the defenders and could effect the defence. One other player (an "expert") bid directly to 7 after the 5D. What can you do.

Sadly it went down 1 on a 4-1 trump break. My gamble on the King paid off. Its clearly borderline based on people's 68-75% criteria discussed elsewhere (PS I know mine is conditional on the K spades). I was just bidding to 6 but partner decided to go to 7 after my sign off.

I should have signed off (possibly) after 5D but with a good chance of the King spades I wanted to go on. Asking for kings was not very useful really. I hoped for a 6S response which would have helped me make my decision to proceed or not

regards P

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PS Please be kind. I know this was a big gamble and not bid correctly but exploring the slams was definitely there so would appreciate constructive criticism on how to identify the key cards earlier rather than being told I am incorrectly bidding unmakeable slams

PPS It actually makes 7D which may have been a more profitable exploration

[Stephen Tu]

You really shouldn't bid 5nt after blackwood. 5nt guarantees all key cards and is a grand slam try. Robot's 7s may or may not be justified, but if you avoid 5nt this would be avoided. Since spades are trumps, 5nt isn't going to tell you about the spade king. The SK is a keycard on this auction, not a side king. 6S would just say no side K, it doesn't show/deny SK at all.
You generally shouldn't use RKC with a void because you are guessing whether or not the critical ace is held or not. That's what exclusion is for. But you can't do that with robots.

With robots you probably don't have the right tools available. With an expert, exclusion blackwood (jump to 5h after 3s) could be employed, also some extended versions of grand slam force (jump to 5nt after 3s) that utilize all the steps could also work. But these are rare auctions, even an expert partnership might screw these up due to misinterpretation of the meanings of 5h/5nt, or not discussing followups to 5nt. 5h is a bit scary because partner bid 2h, though IMO 5h should be exclusion since if you wanted to play in hearts IMO auction should start 2c-2h-3h. 5nt, I think should be GSF, not pick a slam, since there is still room to bid 4d/4c below game first if the issue is finding a trump suit.

[thepossum]

Thanks Stephen

Yes, I know it was incorrect use of Blackwood. It would only have worked with both missing cards

I appreciate it's a bit advanced for me and this forum. Just a bit disappointed those hands are so hard to navigate

Even the earlier stages after 2H are difficult. It's hard to find the diamond fit. A few jumped to 6D after 2H.

I find it rather disappointing that the tools are not easily available to bid a close to 68% grand

I used to bid traditional Blackwood, not keycard which could have worked here since I didn't care about the missing ace and wanted the two missing kings to confirm the spade K

[Tramticket]

Stephen Tu, on 2019-February-14, 00:34, said:

With an expert, exclusion blackwood (jump to 5h after 3s) could be employed, also some extended versions of grand slam force (jump to 5nt after 3s) that utilize all the steps could also work. But these are rare auctions, even an expert partnership might screw these up due to misinterpretation of the meanings of 5h/5nt, or not discussing followups to 5nt. 5h is a bit scary because partner bid 2h, though IMO 5h should be exclusion since if you wanted to play in hearts IMO auction should start 2c-2h-3h. 5nt, I think should be GSF, not pick a slam, since there is still room to bid 4d/4c below game first if the issue is finding a trump suit.

Maybe you can justify afterwards why a jump in partner's suit might be Exclusion, but it seems like an invitation for partner to step on a banana skin. I'm not risking misinterpretation. I make no claims to expert status, but I would be surprised if even an expert partnership would do this (I will be interested if I am corrected). Grand Slam Force looks more plausible and I agree I wouldn't play it as pick a slam on this auction.

[Cyberyeti]

Tramticket, on 2019-February-14, 12:33, said:

Maybe you can justify afterwards why a jump in partner's suit might be Exclusion, but it seems like an invitation for partner to step on a banana skin. I'm not risking misinterpretation. I make no claims to expert status, but I would be surprised if even an expert partnership would do this (I will be interested if I am corrected). Grand Slam Force looks more plausible and I agree I wouldn't play it as pick a slam on this auction.

If you play 2♣-2♥ as forcing to 4N as we do, you have a forcing 4♥ available to agree hearts, so 5♥ is exclusion.