Roman Key Card

When I returned to bridge after my long hiatus, I found that Roman Key Card is all the rage, around here at least. At first, I was skeptical. I’ve seen a number of such conventions, almost all of which are consigned to the mists of history, and with good reason. But I have to admit, I’m impressed with the way RKC can make for halfway decent slam bidding with a complete stranger. I think that any convention needs partners to be in tune, to some extent, about the way that the convention should be used. For the daily grind of bridge in the real world, the really good conventions are the ones that show up as winners in a cost-benefit analysis when you are playing with someone you have never seen before, and about whom you have no idea whether you are in tune or not. Stayman is the one that everyone agrees about. I’m willing to argue that RKC is another winner.

Now, I’m not saying that RKC is a small thing, far from it. After a brief overview from someone, and a little experience playing it in half-assed fashion, I went looking and found Eddie Kantar’s book. I strongly recommend getting it and studying it if you want to play the convention to full power. And if you do, you will certainly agree that RKC is non-trivial. But most people play a watered-down version that loses some of the potential benefits, in exchange for losing most of the most dangerous areas for misunderstanding. I am willing to claim that such a watered-down version shows a big plus in slam bidding with strangers. And if I ever get a regular partner who’s willing to study Kantar, I bet the full-speed version really kicks ass.

The watering-down mainly consists of choosing either 0314 or 1430, always using 4NT as the asking bid, and forgetting about Exclusion Blackwood. Those three things eliminate probably 95% of the confusion potential. Kantar suggests playing both 0314 and 1430, and there are rules for figuring out which is in play for a particular ask – usually opener asks 1430 and responder asks 0314, but there are a lot of exceptions. Just picking one is a lot simpler, with little downside. Exclusion Blackwood is arguably not that complicated, but since we’re talking about a complete stranger, better not to go there. And always using 4NT as the asking bid is definitely simpler than figuring out what suit is available to use at the four level.

But that last choice has some serious downside. A problem for all forms of Blackwood is running out of space when the agreed trump suit is a minor. Something like Redwood (using 4♦ as the ask when aiming for ♣, and 4♥ as the ask when aiming for ♦) might be OK with a stranger. Kantar has some more specific (and therefore harder to remember) rules. An idea that I like, and I can’t remember if it’s in Kantar’s book or not, is to say that in a forcing auction, if you raise partner’s minor to the 4 level, you are not only setting the trump suit, but you are also asking. This isn’t too hard to remember for a strange partner, I think, and it has the potential to make some very smooth auctions when you run into a big hand that should clearly be going towards slam.

When the following hand came up at the Manhattan Bridge Club, nobody bid 7♣, and only a couple of pairs bid even a small slam.

♠ A x x x x
♥ A x x
♦ A
♣ A 9 x x

[ ]

♠ x
♥ Q x
♦ K Q J 10 x
♣ K Q 10 x x

How about this for a sequence?

1♠   2♦ (GF)
3♣   4♣ (RKC)
4♥   7♣

You can count 13 probable tricks: 5♦, 1♥, 1♠, 4♣ in hand and 2 ♠ ruffs in dummy.