What's wrong With RKC?
Eddie Kantar wrote four different books trying to describe how to overcome the problems with Roman Keycard Blackwood,
and numerous auxiliary conventions such as Kickback, Redwood, Minorwood, etc, have been devised to compensate for the failures
inherent in it, but it is still one of the world's most popular conventions. Four books! And yet, two players
will sit down to play for the first time and one will ask, "Fourteen thirty or the other?"
The other will reply, "I play zero three one four."
And with that they go on to the next item on the card. So much for Eddie's four books.
Good and Bad
The idea of making the king of trump equivalent to an ace was a great improvement over the old standard Blackwood, and
being able to ask about the queen is almost as valuable. RKC works wonderfully well when your trump suit is spades,
but not so well with hearts, and is awful with the minors. (To be fair, standard Blackwood is no better when your
trump suit is a minor, especially clubs!) Let me show you a disaster caused by the misuse of RKC. This hand
occurred on BBO, BridgeBase Online.
The Problem
I'm pretty sure you can see the problem without me pointing out the obvious... Declarer was committed to slam off two aces
because the trump suit was hearts and not spades, which could have been passed. Like I said, the convention works
great when you have the master suit.
Three Suggestions
Read Kantar's four books and then tell your partners what you learned, because they won't read them
Give up RKC - but keep the idea of the king of trump being a keycard and use a modified standard Blackwood
Take a look at MSK, Major Suit Keycard, which is not as complicated as RKC, but solves this problem
Major Suit Keycard - MSK (Created by Roy Wilson)
Major Suit Keycard is a modified Blackwood that is optimized for majors, hence the name. It will also work
for minors, but a partnership would do better using Gerber or Minorwood when the trump suit is clubs or diamonds.
4NT is the asking bid:
4NT is the asking bid:
5
Zero or one Keycard
5
Two Keycards but no Queen
5
Two Keycards with the Queen
5
Three keycards or two with an unspecified void
5NT
Four keycards
6
Three Keycards and a void specifically in clubs
6
Three Keycards and a void specifically in diamonds
6
Three Keycards and a spade suit void - (Always the other non-trump major)
6
Three Keycards and a heart suit void - (Always the other non-trump major)
5NT is the asking bid:
5
Zero or one King
5
Two Kings
5
Three Kings
The same agreement can be used with the 5NT asking bid after a response of 6.
NOTES:
1. When the response to 4NT is 5 showing zero or one keycard, the
asking partner can bid 5 to discover which it is.
Retreating to five of the major denies a keycard, but bidding a new suit shows one keycard with
the queen of trump and jumping to six of the trump suit shows one keycard, but denies the queen.
2. In response to the 5NT king-asking bid, a bid of 6 shows either zero
or one king. The 6 is available to find out if the responder has zero, or does he have one?
When responder has no kings, he simply stops at the small slam in either hearts or spades, but with one king, he should jump
to the grand slam. (Don't ask, unless you want to be in the the top contract!)
3. In response to the 4NT asking bid, a bid of 5NT shows four keycards... But now the player
who started the asking sequence cannot use 5NT to aks for kings! But it's not a problem - the player who initiated the
process simply becomes the responder and tells his partner how many kings he has. This is a partnership game, and the
Asking/Responding roles have been exchanged.
Now take another look at the hand at the top of the page and bid it again, using MSK.
If you would like a more complete explanation of Roman Keycard try:
Roy Wilson
Major Suit Keycard
What's wrong With RKC?
Eddie Kantar wrote four different books trying to describe how to overcome the problems with Roman Keycard Blackwood,
and numerous auxiliary conventions such as Kickback, Redwood, Minorwood, etc, have been devised to compensate for the failures
inherent in it, but it is still one of the world's most popular conventions. Four books! And yet, two players
will sit down to play for the first time and one will ask, "Fourteen thirty or the other?"
The other will reply, "I play zero three one four." And with that they go on to the next item on the
card. So much for Eddie's four books.
Good and Bad
The idea of making the king of trump equivalent to an ace was a great improvement over the old standard Blackwood, and
being able to ask about the queen is almost as valuable. RKC works wonderfully well when your trump suit is spades,
but not so well with hearts, and is awful with the minors. (To be fair, standard Blackwood is no better when your
trump suit is a minor, especially clubs!) Let me show you a disaster caused by the misuse of RKC. This hand
occurred on BBO, BridgeBase Online.
The Problem
I'm pretty sure you can see the problem without me pointing out the obvious... Declarer was committed to slam off two aces
because the trump suit was hearts and not spades, which could have been passed. Like I said, the convention works
great when you have the master suit.
Three Suggestions
Read Kantar's four books and then tell your partners what you learned, because they won't read them
Give up RKC - but keep the idea of the king of trump being a keycard and use a modified standard Blackwood
Take a look at MSK, Major Suit Keycard, which is not as complicated as RKC, but solves this problem
Major Suit Keycard - MSK (Created by Roy Wilson)
Major Suit Keycard is a modified Blackwood that is optimized for majors, hence the name. It will also work
for minors, but a partnership would do better using Gerber or Minorwood when the trump suit is clubs or diamonds.
4NT is the asking bid:
5
Zero or one Keycard
5
Two Keycards but no Queen
5
Two Keycards with the Queen
5
Three keycards or two with an unspecified void
5NT
Four keycards
6
Three Keycards and a void specifically in clubs
6
Three Keycards and a void specifically in diamonds
6
Three Keycards and a spade suit void - (Always the other non-trump major)
6
Three Keycards and a heart suit void - (Always the other non-trump major)
5NT is the asking bid:
5
Zero or one King
5
Two Kings
5
Three Kings
The same agreement can be used with the 5NT asking bid after a response of 6.
.
NOTES:
1. When the response to 4NT is 5 showing zero or one keycard, the
asking partner can bid 5 to discover which it is.
Retreating to five of the major denies a keycard, but bidding a new suit shows one keycard with
the queen of trump and jumping to six of the trump suit shows one keycard, but denies the queen.
2. In response to the 5NT king-asking bid, a bid of 6 shows either zero
or one king. The 6 is available to find out if the responder has zero, or does he have one?
When responder has no kings, he simply stops at the small slam in either hearts or spades, but with one king, he should jump
to the grand slam. (Don't ask, unless you want to be in the the top contract!)
3. In response to the 4NT asking bid, a bid of 5NT shows four keycards... But now the player
who started the asking sequence cannot use 5NT to aks for kings! But it's not a problem - the player who initiated the
process simply becomes the responder and tells his partner how many kings he has. This is a partnership game, and the
Asking/Responding roles have been exchanged.
Now take another look at the hand at the top of the page and bid it again, using MSK.
.
