Roman Key Card Blackwood

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Why Learn Roman Key Card Blackwood (RKCB)

When you are contemplating bidding a slam you need to know if the opponents can take two tricks quickly. Discovering what aces are held by your partner is therefore a normal part of investigating the possibility of making a slam. And Blackwood is the traditional way of discovering how many aces are held by your partner.

But experience has shown that the K and Q of trumps are almost as important as the aces. RKCB addresses this problem. The sequence starts with 4NT and the responses, like ordinary Blackwood are in steps. An answer of 2spades says, "partner I have 2 key cards and the Q of trumps". In this system there are five key cards, the four aces plus the K of trumps.

If you already use Blackwood you will find that converting to RKCB will significantly improve your ability to bid making slams, and avoid bad ones. Of course to use the convention you must be playing with a partner that also knows the system, and has agreed to play it.

Is it Easy to Learn? Basically the responses are easy to learn. But knowing how to respond can be tricky, especially for a novice user. The problem is avoiding ambiguity in the trump suit. The tutorial will concentrate on this aspect of RKCB.

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July 31, 2011