Grandslam conventions

East/West did well to bid grand slam on today’s hand taken from a recent teams’ match at the Otago Bridge Club. Let’s take a look at the bidding.

East’s opener was a standard Acol game force. West responded with a negative two diamonds (he described it as ‘‘staying out of partner’s way’’) whereas some may have preferred to give a positive.

However, once West had shown his diamonds, East leapt into action. His fournotrump call was Roman Keycard Blackwood. This convention evolved from the aceasking mechanisms of the great Italian teams of the 1960s. It refines standard Blackwood by treating the king of trumps as a fifth ace. It also enables the presence of the queen of trumps to be investigated.

West’s response showed two keycards (i.e. either two aces or one ace and the king of trumps) but without the queen of trumps. This was exactly what East wanted to hear. What a perfect hand for a keycardasking sequence.

Five clubs from West would have shown one or four keycards, five diamonds no or three keycards and five spades two keycards with the queen of trumps.

Care must be taken to ensure the trump suit is agreed upon before initiating Roman Keycard Blackwood. Often, as was the case here, the last natural suit bid by the responder to the fournotrump call sets the trumps.

Fourclubbers do not miss out because there is Roman Keycard Gerber.

East/West at the companion table did not fare so well. Their South opened two diamonds, showing a weak two in either major and North jumped to a passorcorrect four hearts (promising both majors). East tried four spades and was left to play there.

To add insult to injury he made only 12 tricks, after finessing against North’s implied spade length and losing to the singleton queen.