October 2015 - 56

Intermediate Players

Better Bridge with Bergen
BY MARTY BERGEN

martybergen.com

Slam bidding in review - part 25
Dear Marty,
I was playing in a Swiss team event
with my favorite partner. FYI: We're
advanced players and play "everything." The conventions that came
up on this hand were fourth-suit
forcing to game and 1430 Roman Key
Card Blackwood using the last-bid
suit as the key-card suit. Here is my
awesome hand:
♠A K Q 10 8 7 5 3 ♥A ♦7 ♣K Q 10.

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56 Bridge Bulletin October 2015

I was all set to open 2♣ when, lo
and behold, my partner opened 1♥!
Partner
1♥
2♦
3♥
4♦
5♠ (2)

Me
1♠
3♣ (1)
3♠
4NT
?

(1) Fourth suit, artificial game force.
(2) Two key cards with diamonds
(the last-bid suit) as the trump suit.
Although I badly wanted spades
to be the last bid suit for key-card
purposes, my uncooperative partner
kept bidding his own suits. After his
5♠ response, showing two key cards
with the ♦Q, I had to guess: Did he
have two aces or one ace and the ♦K?
I was unwilling to bid a grand slam
off a key card. Therefore, I contented
myself with 6♠.
Unfortunately for me (and my
team), partner had:
♠4 ♥Q 10 9 6 5 3 ♦A Q J 5 4 ♣A.
The only good news was that the
other team had the identical auction.
We ended up losing the match by 4
IMPs. Any suggestions?
Lew S.
Tuscon AZ
I received Lew's letter while leaving
my house to teach a class of beginners.
After getting to the club and doing
what I needed to set up, I had some
time to kill, and decided to read Lew's
letter. I was making a few notes when
the first two students walked in.

"Good morning, Marty," Barb said,
"what are you working on?"
"I'm answering a question about the
bidding of an interesting hand."
"Could Susan and I try bidding it?"
"Sure," I invited.
Susan
1♥
5♥
Pass

Barb
4NT
7NT

"Well done, ladies," I commended
them. "You got to the perfect contract."
Which brings us to you, Lew.
I agree that on your auction, your 6♠
guess was not silly. I confess, however,
that the first thought that popped into
my head when I read your letter was
not, "I sympathize." Instead, I was
reminded of a conversation I had
many years ago with legendary bridge
authority, Edgar Kaplan. Edgar, who
was not an aficionado of RKCB, was
famous for saying, "The king of trump
is NOT an ace."
Even if I try to ignore my disdain for
relying on using the last-bid suit to establish the trump suit for the purposes
of key card, it's not easy to sympathize
with you on a hand that would have
been a slam dunk for a beginner.
I urge you to break away from the
herd and stop playing last-bid-suit key
card, or at least consider the following exception: The rare response of
4NT to an opening bid in a suit should
be traditional ace-asking Blackwood,
not RKCB. If you want to bid RKCB in
opener's suit, first let him know that
his suit is trump.
◾
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of October 2015
