January 2013 - 50

Better Bridge with Bergen

Marty Bergen
www.martybergen.com

If you have extra length in the
trump suit, or you know that your side
has at least 10 trumps, you should
respond as if you had the queen of
trumps. I'll discuss that further in a
future article.
If you know exactly where you want
to play, there's no reason to bid 4NT.
1. A Q J 10 A 9 8 6 5 4 2 A 8
You
1
?

4NT asking bids
Our next series focuses on 4NT bids
that ask for aces or key cards, I often
refer to this as "Blackwood dos and
don'ts."
Unlike traditional Blackwood,
both variations of Roman Key Card
Blackwood treat the trump king as a
fifth key card. In this series, unless
otherwise stated, everything applies
to traditional Blackwood as well as
RKCB. Of course, I am talking about
artificial, forcing, asking bids of 4NT,
not natural, non-forcing quantitative
4NT bids.
The RKCB approaches are usually
referred to by number only: "3014"
and "1430." Here are the responses to
4NT ace/key-card asking:

Partner
4

Bid 6. You have a good handle on
the number of losers before seeing
dummy. No diamond loser - that's a
good start. Partner's 4 bid promises
five trumps, so with your 12-card fit
including the ace, you won't lose a
heart trick.
You don't know where you stand
in the black suits. If partner has the
A or K or shortness in spades,
6 is cold. If you get a diamond lead
and partner happens to have the K,
you'll be able get to dummy with a
trump and discard your 8 on the K.
When you take the spade finesse,
you will feel no pain if it happens to
lose. It's also possible that partner has
two low spades and that you'll get a

Bid

Traditional

3014

1430

5

0 or 4 aces

0 or 3 key cards

1 or 4 key cards

5

1 ace

1 or 4 key cards

0 or 3 key cards

5

2 aces

2 or 5 key cards,
denies trump queen

2 or 5 key cards,
denies trump queen

5

3 aces

2 or 5 key cards,
shows trump queen

2 or 5 key cards,
shows trump queen

50 Bridge Bulletin January 2013

spade lead. If none of the above materializes, 6 is still 50-50 based on the
spade finesse. Bidding a slam that is,
at worst, 50% is good bridge.
When this hand was played in a
recent tournament, the player who
held it couldn't resist bidding 4NT. His
partner responded 5 to show one
or four key cards (obviously one),
and his right-hand opponent made a
lead-directing double. The big hand
jumped to 6 and everyone passed. A
club was led, and partner tabled
8 5 K J 10 7 3 K 6 10 9 7 5.
Declarer ruffed the second club and
led a heart to dummy's king to draw
trumps. Unfortunately, when he took
the spade finesse, it lost to the king.
Was our hero unlucky? Yes and no! If
he had bid 6 without going through
4NT, he would have gotten a diamond
lead, and he would have scored up his
slam. The opening leader's hand was:
K 7 6 3 Q Q J 10 8 Q 6 4 3.
2. A 9 8 6 5 4 A A 10 8 3 A 4
You
1
?

Partner
3

3 is a Bergen raise showing a limit
raise with at least four trumps.
Bid 6. Four aces - awesome!
You're dealt all four aces only one out
of every 378 hands. Now, all you need
to do is some simple arithmetic.
16 high-card points + 1 point for all
the aces + 2 points for the six-card
suit = 19 starting points.
Once partner shows trump support,
add 2 points for the singleton, 1 point
for the sixth trump, 1 point for the fourcard side suit = 23 Bergen points. ➤
http://www.martybergen.com
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January 2013
