[pescetom]

At the end of each year I like to review partnership agreements and throw out anything strange that never came up or no longer convinces us.

One area with potential for cleanup is RKCB, where we have several types of ask, probably too many considering that we tend to privilege control-bidding whenever possible. It may also be possible to improve our response rules which are currently that we respond 1403 in all RKCB situations except for Exclusion which is 0314.

We currently have (at least) the following RKCB situations: with my related considerations on 0314/1403 constraints.

1. 4NT ask with trumps ♠: 0314/1403 makes no difference
2. 4NT ask with trumps ♥: 1403 is clearly preferable as it allows a Q ask when kc=1
3. 4NT ask with trumps ♦: 1403 seems better as it allows a Q ask when kc=1
4. 4NT ask with trumps ♣: 1403 seems better as we can stop in game when kc=1
5. 4♦ ask with trumps ♣: 0314/1403 makes no difference
6. 4♣ ask with trumps ♦: 0314/1403 makes no difference
7. 4♣ ask about preempts in ♦: 1403 seems slightly better for our bidding style as we can stop in 4♦ when kc=1
8. 4♣ ask about preempts in ♥/♠: 0314/1403 makes no difference
9. Exclusion of suit below trumps: 0314 slightly better as we can stop in 5 trumps when kc=0
10. Exclusion of any other suit: 0314/1403 makes no difference.

In general, we use RKCB sparingly, only when necessary and with a reason not to proceed in control-bids instead. We follow the usual guidelines about strong hand asking and so on.

Over a hearts fit, I'm not prepared to suffer the stress of using a 4♠ ask, and can live with the limitations of 4NT mitigated by 1403.

On the rare occasions when we RKCB with a minor fit we use Crosswood if possible (some ambiguous looking sequences are better avoided even if the rules allow them, and a 4♣ ask over diamonds can be too low) rather than 4NT which is a SNAFU anyway whatever response scheme is used. So probably we could usefully exclude 3 and 4 from our system.

The 4♣/♦ ask over preempts rarely comes up, but it works fine when it does so quite happy here. I have no qualms about playing standard RKCB responses rather than some reduced scheme, but over diamonds there is a small issue of which response scheme suits preempt style (our diamonds preempts are unlikely to have kc=0 and thus suit 1403).

We currently play that Exclusion is 0314, which seems to be standard (some writeups even suggest 0/1/2/3 kc responses) and probably makes sense when excluding the suit below trumps (assuming the most probable negative situation to be kc=0 when the only keycard is excluded). Not sure this is so clear cut as to justify an exception to the "everything is 1403" rule, though.

I guess that if we eliminate 4NT as ask over minors we could equally well play "everything is 0314 except 4NT over hearts" (although that is a much more frequent potential forget than Exclusion).


Some of that is more thinking out loud than convinced argument, so please take it as such.
Interested to hear your thoughts about this, in particular any area where you think we really should be playing 0314 and why.

[DavidKok]

I don't have strong feelings on 1430 versus 3014. I'd recommend playing the same style in all situations, if only for the memory load. I've played "3014 when clubs are trump, 1430 otherwise" and it came up a few times, got us into a few good slams and made us guess a few times. I think it's a wash, or at least I couldn't tell the difference. Keycard methods are highly overvalued anyway, pick a simple one and move on to higher frequency issues.

[pescetom]

DavidKok, on 2023-January-03, 15:12, said:

I don't have strong feelings on 1430 versus 3014. I'd recommend playing the same style in all situations, if only for the memory load. I've played "3014 when clubs are trump, 1430 otherwise" and it came up a few times, got us into a few good slams and made us guess a few times. I think it's a wash, or at least I couldn't tell the difference. Keycard methods are highly overvalued anyway, pick a simple one and move on to higher frequency issues.

Thanks, and I agree.
I don't find this a particular memory load whatever the agreement, but a year of playing 0314 with less regular partners has reminded me this is no huge issue.

[Douglas43]

If you are feeling radical, I use 4NT only, reserving 4m for natural bids which confirm slam interest and invite cue bids. It seems to work OK.

[thepossum]

I read an article a little while back that a few top pairs/teams were still using Standard Blackwood (EDIT 8/60 according to Marty Bergen on BridgeBum)
Is that still the case?

From a personal, fairly lowly, position what annoys me most is the King ask. Tell me how many please
And I think I would opt for 1304 or 1986 or whatever rather that 0413. What is it?
Sorry 1403. That one followed by a standard King ask

And for those who need help apparently the world's first quarantine station against the plague was built in Venice in 1403
or maybe I am thinking of 1430 when the Ottomans captured somewhere - not just somewhere Thessalonica

Do people realise how many combinations of 0,1,2,3, and 4 there are
I can actually understand the ordering 0123 - the weaker my hand the lower I keep the bidding

Another question. Why are intermediate and advanced grouped together?

[LBengtsson]

There are different variations of Blackwood, Exclusion, Redwood, Kickback, and other slam bidding mechanisms, but I personally think Turbo 4NT is very undervalued. And many players do not like Gerber/Super Gerber except when used in no-trump bidding.

Whilst I agree that it is good to have defined explanations for the various auctions that can occur around slam bidding, I am a firm believer that KISS (Keep It Simple, Sonny) is best in the long run. Yes, the variations where RKCB occurs need clear definitions, but I believe it is just as important to understand the definitions for cue-bidding also in slam bidding. There is a big difference between voids, aces, stiffs and kings (second round control) and the definitions for these are just as important in slam bidding.

[DavidKok]

The goal of grouping 1+4 in one bid and 0+3 in another isn't to optimise the frequency of staying low (which at any rate will depend on the number of key cards in the asker's hand, so if you want to optimise that you'd have to play different versions on different auctions. And some people do - i.e. 00112 over partner's preempt), it's a tradeoff between staying low and giving asker an unambiguous count. I personally ask for specific kings and have rather detailed Blackwood agreements, but I'd rather not play any keycard ask than try to tease out where it can be improved further.

Turbo looks not clearly better or worse than the alternatives, what makes it so great?

[nullve]

Suppose we call a card a 'quasi-keycard (QKC)' if it is either a keycard (KC) or the trump Q (TQ). Then between

A: not having a clue how many KCs partner has and whether he has the TQ
B: knowing how many KCs partner has and whether he has the TQ and

there are at least

C: knowing whether partner has many QKCs in the context of the bidding so far
D: knowing partner's QKC parity
E: knowing partner's KC parity and whether he has the TQ

and I think that from Asker's perspective,

A < C < D < E < B.

So over 4N, if that's the initial key card ask, maybe

T=♣:
5♣ = few QKCs in context
...P = thinks too many QKCs are missing
...5♦ = KC ask
......5♥ = even # of KCs
.........5♠ = TQ ask
............5N = no TQ
............6♣+ = TQ
......5♠ = odd # of KCs, no TQ
......5N+ = odd # of KCs, TQ
...(...)
5♦ = many QKCs in context and in fact an even # of KCs
...5♥ = TQ ask
......5♠ = no TQ
......5N+ = TQ
...(...)
5♥ = many QKCs in context and in fact an odd # of KCs but no TQ
5♠(+) = many QKCs in context and in fact and odd # of KCs and the TQ

T=♦:
5♣ = few QKCs in context but an even #
...5♦ = thinks too many QKCs are missing
...5♥ = TQ ask
......5♠ = no TQ, hence an even # of KCs
......5N+ = TQ, hence an odd # of KCs
...(...)
5♦ = few QKCs in context but an odd #
...P = thinks too many QKCs are missing
...5♥ = TQ ask
......5♠ = no TQ, hence an odd # of KCs
......5N+ = TQ, hence an even # of KCs
...(...)
5♥ = many QKCs in context and in fact an even # of KCs
...5♠ = TQ ask
......5N = no TQ
......6♣+ = TQ
...(...)
5♠ = many QKCs in context and in fact an odd # of KCs but no TQ
5N(+) = many QKCs in context and in fact and odd # of KCs and the TQ

T=♥:
5♣ = even # of KCs
...5♦ = TQ ask
......5♥ = no TQ
......5♠+ = TQ
...(...)
5♦ = odd # of KCs, no TQ
5♥ = odd # of KCs, TQ

T=♠:
5♣ = 0 or 3 KCs
...5♦ = TQ ask
......5♥ = no TQ
......5♠+ = TQ
...(...)
5♦ = 1 or 4 KCs
...5♥ = TQ ask
......5♠ = no TQ
......5N+ = TQ
...(...)
5♥ = 2 or 5 KCs, no TQ
5♠ = 2 or 5 KCS, TQ

?

[sfi]

DavidKok, on 2023-January-03, 15:12, said:

Keycard methods are highly overvalued anyway, pick a simple one and move on to higher frequency issues.

This is certainly an oft quoted maxim, but I've come around to the idea that it's no longer correct. There are enough tools to investigate slam that keep the auction low that, by the time you get to your keycard ask I find it generally is the most important question. So much so that my regular partner and I often wind up in an auction where we can maneuver partner into asking for keycards if they have anything extra. We'll now ask even with an unsuitable hand because we know that partner has set up the auction in this way. The only time we regularly don't ask for keycards is if the answer genuinely won't help us (i.e. weak trumps or a void).

So many of our auctions go this way that I think we should be using side suits past our kickback key card ask to inquire about control in that suit. At the moment they are mostly wasted bids for us. Many slam bidding tools have gained popularity in the past couple of decades (improved Jacoby responses, non-serious 3nt, last train, XYZ, Gazzilli and so on) and IMO it has changed the utility of key card asks.

I do have strong feelings about the responses. If you play kickback it doesn't matter, but it should be consistent with your exclusion responses unless you really want to do your head in. And there 0314 can be quite important. So we've gone to that throughout the system.

[pescetom]

sfi, on 2023-January-04, 06:17, said:

I do have strong feelings about the responses. If you play kickback it doesn't matter, but it should be consistent with your exclusion responses unless you really want to do your head in. And there 0314 can be quite important. So we've gone to that throughout the system.

We currently kickback the minors with Crosswood but we do not kickback hearts, which pushes us towards 1403 so that we can at least discover the combination of Q and 1 kc.
But we also play Exclusion, where most sources suggest 0314 like you do. There certainly are situations where only 0314 works here, see for example this hand where after 5♣ Exclusion only the first reply can stop in game. I still have a doubt that things are that clear cut, however, as voids don't occur only in the strong hand and there are some situations where the asker needs and reasonably hopes for 2 kc after exclusion. If the two more or less balance out (probably not, I agree) then we could just play 1403 everywhere.

[mycroft]

I am of the opinion (which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone here) that if you have 10 ace-asking patterns, get rid of 5 of them, and streamline the other 5; and use the memory space for something more common.

If you can play Kickback (and solve all the problems with it unambiguously and identically to both players in the pair), sure, you don't care about the order of the responses. I absolutely agree that that is a huge plus (says the person who "gambled" 6♥ last week, because he couldn't ask for the ♥Q because response, but partner "had to have it" to make a serious slam try with only one KC) and only the fear of mis-interpreting one of the failing cases stops me from playing it.

But as I said, I've played "Gerber is Baby Food" for most of the last 15 years with most of my partners, and "never" missed it (okay, maybe two times). The partner I do play it with has used it 3 times, 2 of which were clearly wrong and the other one was arguable. And she is a much better player than I am - expects to make the playoffs for the national team qualifiers.

Now, maybe it's because I'm a matchpoint player (in not the best fields); and I know for a fact that my slam bidding needs work. But I don't miss slams because "the KC answer I'm going to get won't help/will take me too high/will not allow me a queen ask" very often; it's judging whether to go for keycards (or slam in general) that is the problem.

[LBengtsson]

DavidKok, on 2023-January-04, 05:39, said:

Turbo looks not clearly better or worse than the alternatives, what makes it so great?

I found this analysis by Ana Roth on the net, David. I had not seen it before. It took me nearly half-a-hour to read but it is worth the time. I am not against using RKCB but if you are going high-tech with slam bidding, Turbo and its variants do have some advantages imo.

http://youth.worldbr...rbo-convention/

[pescetom]

thepossum, on 2023-January-04, 03:28, said:

From a personal, fairly lowly, position what annoys me most is the King ask. Tell me how many please
And I think I would opt for 1304 or 1986 or whatever rather that 0413. What is it?
Sorry 1403. That one followed by a standard King ask

And for those who need help apparently the world's first quarantine station against the plague was built in Venice in 1403

In 1403 a King of England had to fight for his throne against another English army in the Battle of Shrewsbury.
Are you interested to know which King ?

It's fairly trivial to probe for any Successive King after a Specific King show, if that is your gripe.

thepossum, on 2023-January-04, 03:28, said:

Another question. Why are intermediate and advanced grouped together?

That's a better question, although not as good as why distinguish between a Novice and a Beginner.
But probably having four different levels of discussion would be overkill, especially with the limited number who actually contribute.

[DavidKok]

LBengtsson, on 2023-January-04, 09:55, said:

I found this analysis by Ana Roth on the net, David. I had not seen it before. It took me nearly half-a-hour to read but it is worth the time. I am not against using RKCB but if you are going high-tech with slam bidding, Turbo and its variants do have some advantages imo.

http://youth.worldbr...rbo-convention/

Thanks, that page is identical to the 28-page pdf on the convention I've got. I've read a good chunk of it but didn't finish reading, it wasn't clear to me that it was a good use of my time. I might give it another try.

[pescetom]

LBengtsson, on 2023-January-04, 09:55, said:

I found this analysis by Ana Roth on the net, David. I had not seen it before. It took me nearly half-a-hour to read but it is worth the time. I am not against using RKCB but if you are going high-tech with slam bidding, Turbo and its variants do have some advantages imo.

http://youth.worldbr...rbo-convention/

It's a good article, although the girls in the photo play a version that is more complex than what is described here and Lauria has many more variants than mentioned too.
But most Italian pairs stop at basic Turbo plus Queen denials, which together with non-serious 3N and rigorous control-bidding already do a good job.
I've got a lot more mileage out of these methods than out of RKCB, which we use less each year and only in specific situations, hence this post.
I think the real downside of the Italian methods is that they leak more information to opponents, although at I/A level it's surprising how often they miss the killer lead all the same.

[pescetom]

mycroft, on 2023-January-04, 09:44, said:

I am of the opinion (which shouldn't be a surprise to anyone here) that if you have 10 ace-asking patterns, get rid of 5 of them, and streamline the other 5; and use the memory space for something more common.

If you can play Kickback (and solve all the problems with it unambiguously and identically to both players in the pair), sure, you don't care about the order of the responses. I absolutely agree that that is a huge plus (says the person who "gambled" 6♥ last week, because he couldn't ask for the ♥Q because response, but partner "had to have it" to make a serious slam try with only one KC) and only the fear of mis-interpreting one of the failing cases stops me from playing it.

But as I said, I've played "Gerber is Baby Food" for most of the last 15 years with most of my partners, and "never" missed it (okay, maybe two times). The partner I do play it with has used it 3 times, 2 of which were clearly wrong and the other one was arguable. And she is a much better player than I am - expects to make the playoffs for the national team qualifiers.

Thanks. We actually have 5 ace-asking patterns, the 4 I mentioned here plus Gerber (which I deliberately didn't mention). The other 6 in my list are just sub-cases of the 4 where the choice 0314/1403 has different implications (for instance, Exclusion of suit below trumps rather than of any other suit).
But I agree that 5 patterns is too many all the same. 4NT over minors will go, probably 4♣ over diamonds too: the jury is out for 4♦ over clubs, which works neatly but still steals a control-bid. Taking out Gerber would be more trouble than it's worth, and 2 of the 3? times it even made some sense

[mycroft]

My point is that "swapping between responses based on 'sub-cases' of 'cases'" (as opposed to "we swap responses, here's the metarule that applies to all cases" - although even that seems dangerous) is almost worse than "more cases". I can remember the responses to 30 conventions/flowpaths, but "2NT when two suits shown = INV+ query" applies every time we have that case, and not "2NT is the ask in general, but if it's clubs and hearts, then it's 2♠ instead; oh, and if it's diamonds and spades, then the responses are reversed because it minimizes the chance we get trapped"...

Subcases/exceptions massively increase the chance that one or the other of the pair has a forget. Now, if you're MeckWell, then fine, do what you want. Frankly, if your whole life is this bridge partnership, then fine. But I have a real job; I direct; I have other partners; I like getting a michelada after the game and watching the world go by (some events, before the game!) - so I try to minimize exceptions.

(and I still have a fair number: flip-flop Dormer, 2oM after a 2♦ reverse = lebensohl, 4NT on the first round is straight-ace (even 1NT-4NT, in one partnership), systems on over 2♣ only (rescue/X, leb/higher) (but even here, "it doesn't matter what 2♣ (or X) _means_, we play systems on (resp. rescue)" - but of course, we have the "if their overcall is artificial and 'forcing', we can choose to let them resolve it, and leb around that next round instead")...and I forget every one of them some of the time!)

This is why Symmetric Relay took over from all the other, more efficient, relay systems. They're only more efficient if both partners remember it, *and* if both partners have confidence that their partner remembers it the same way; and if the energy expense of remembering all the efficient paths doesn't cut into the energy required to, you know, play the great contracts you get to...

[sfi]

pescetom, on 2023-January-04, 08:04, said:

We currently kickback the minors with Crosswood but we do not kickback hearts, which pushes us towards 1403 so that we can at least discover the combination of Q and 1 kc.
But we also play Exclusion, where most sources suggest 0314 like you do. There certainly are situations where only 0314 works here, see for example this hand where after 5♣ Exclusion only the first reply can stop in game. I still have a doubt that things are that clear cut, however, as voids don't occur only in the strong hand and there are some situations where the asker needs and reasonably hopes for 2 kc after exclusion. If the two more or less balance out (probably not, I agree) then we could just play 1403 everywhere.

The only time 1430 saves you in a cramped auction (which is often true for exclusion) is when you are worried about 1 key card and can already rule out the possibility of zero. In my experience that's rarer than the question of 0 vs 1, hence my view that 03/14 is better here. I haven't read Kantar's book, but my understanding is that the switch to 14/30 gains primarily when you now get to ask for the trump queen - the idea is that one key card is more likely than zero in many cooperative auctions. There are two different problems to be solved, so it's worth not conflating them. As I mentioned, we solved the second by switching to kickback (and enough practice to not stuff it up), which means we could solve the first one by changing the responses to key card enquiries.

LBengtsson mentioned Turbo, which worked well enough the one time I played it. My concern was that it only shows an even or odd number of key cards. A difference of two could lead to confusion more easily than RKC, which only combines responses where there is a difference of three. Maybe it never causes issues in practice, but I haven't had enough experience with it. We did discuss switching to it in the current partnership but decided it didn't offer us enough at the time.

[pescetom]

sfi, on 2023-January-04, 15:33, said:

The only time 1430 saves you in a cramped auction (which is often true for exclusion) is when you are worried about 1 key card and can already rule out the possibility of zero. In my experience that's rarer than the question of 0 vs 1, hence my view that 03/14 is better here. I haven't read Kantar's book, but my understanding is that the switch to 14/30 gains primarily when you now get to ask for the trump queen - the idea is that one key card is more likely than zero in many cooperative auctions. There are two different problems to be solved, so it's worth not conflating them. As I mentioned, we solved the second by switching to kickback (and enough practice to not stuff it up), which means we could solve the first one by changing the responses to key card enquiries.

LBengtsson mentioned Turbo, which worked well enough the one time I played it. My concern was that it only shows an even or odd number of key cards. A difference of two could lead to confusion more easily than RKC, which only combines responses where there is a difference of three. Maybe it never causes issues in practice, but I haven't had enough experience with it. We did discuss switching to it in the current partnership but decided it didn't offer us enough at the time.

I think the key about 1403/0314 and Q ask is that the Kantar scheme only works fully when trumps are spades or you kickback the other suits.
Retaining 4NT as asking strain over other suits is a SNAFU, but at least with hearts you can salvage 1kc + Q by using 1403.
In my partnerships, the discipline and practice necessary to not stuff up with a major as the asking strain is not an option, so we only kickback the minors with the other minor, not diamonds with hearts or hearts with spades.
My doubt about Exclusion is how predominant it is that we hope for 1 kc as opposed to 2, given that a void can occur in the weaker hand too.

Turbo is the default for us and I assure you that the ambiguity of parity is no frequent issue: maybe once a month, playing twice a week.
It's more of an issue that with relatively simple agreements the lack of trumps Q can sometimes be ambiguous until we are already committed to slam, or that 4NT can negatively disturb the control-bid sequence (slightly more frequent than the positive case).

[pescetom]

pescetom, on 2023-January-04, 16:05, said:

My doubt about Exclusion is how predominant it is that we hope for 1 kc as opposed to 2, given that a void can occur in the weaker hand too.

To construct an example, had that hand been instead :

---

then West would still have bid 5♣ Exclusion, but now he wants to stop in 5♦ if partner has 1 unexcluded keycard, which requires 1403 (things will still go pear shaped if partner has 0, but that's probably a fair risk here).


Add in the fact that the reply scheme can only make a difference when the trump suit is above and touching the excluded suit, which is 1 in 4 of all Exclusion bids, and maybe it is reasonable to just play 1403 everywhere including Exclusion.