Right Answer to the Wrong Question

My 18-month old daughter is clearly a genius. At this age, genius means: recognizing which items are which color. If you ask her what color a banana is, she'll tell you (loudly), "Yellow!" Ask about a duckling? "Yellow!" She also knows that the sun, schoolbus, and her favorite socks are all yellow. Brilliant! I'm sure she's right that there are places that have yellow firetrucks as well. , she's very worldly.

Whenever we learn something new in bridge, there's a tendency to use it as the answer for everything. Teachers know this. We've seen students open 2 as Conventional response to notrump to ask about majors Stayman or jump to 2 over an opening bid as a transfer to spades. Most of these get resolved after a few mishaps, but the one that persists is 4NT as Roman Keycard A 4NT bid to ask for aces (or in RKC, keycards) Blackwood (RKCB).

If you play regular Blackwood--stop and switch. When most players say "Blackwood" nowadays they mean "Keycard Blackwood". Keycard Blackood is a great convention. It will prevent you from going to slams missing two keycards (the keycards are the 4 aces and the king of trump). It will also let you know about the queen of trump, another key card (but not Keycard). 

Once we learn RKCB, it's hard to unlearn it, but just as 2 isn't always Conventional response to notrump to ask about majors Stayman and 2 isn't necessarily a transfer, 4NT isn't always Blackwood. 4NT can be useful in a variety of situations: takeout, quantitative, or even to play. How do you know? 

Keycard A 4NT bid to ask for aces (or in RKC, keycards) Blackwood requires a trump suit (or else there isn't a trump queen or king). Without a trump suit, 4NT MUST mean something else. The most frequent thing it means is "I'm too good to bid 3NT. If you like your hand bid 6NT." That's called a quantitative invitiation. It could also be called a slam invitation (as opposed to a game inviation). Auctions like 1NT - 4NT or 2NT - 4NT are not Blackwood. 

When would you use 4NT as invitational? Partner opens 2NT and you have something like: 

AJ10

K2

KJ109

9872. 

You have a hand that wants to be in slam if the 2NT bidder likes their opening, and not if the 2NT bidder hates their opening. Forget about aces-- partner isn't going to like their hand with 1 ace anyways. But partner will have enough aces for slam with a variety of hands that won't make slam: KQx AQxx AQxx QJ. You want partner to like their hand: KQx AQJx Qx AQJx-- a much better hand for jacks in where they belong (the long suits) instead of in the short club suit. 

 

Of course, sometimes, you'd want to use Conventional response to notrump to ask about majors Stayman over the 2NT first. If your hand is 

AJ102

K2

KJ109

987, 

you should respond 3 to 2NT. If opener bids 3 or 3, you can jump to 4NT again. Notice that it's NOT Blackwood, because no suit has been agreed upon. However, if partner bids 3, you need to set trump. The way to do that is by bidding the only suit you can't want to play: 4 (4 and 4 are natural and forcing). If you had hearts and not spades, you wouldn't use Conventional response to notrump to ask about majors Stayman to begin with. After the 4 call, either hand can use A 4NT bid to ask for aces (or in RKC, keycards) Blackwood since spades are now agreed to be trumps. 

 

What about another part of this sequence: 

West	North	East	South
			2NT
Pass	3	Pass	3
Pass	4	Pass	?

North is showing clubs and a major (we don't know which) and a hand with some slam interest. What should South do with: 

KQ9

KQJ

AQJ42

Q9? 

No fit, just one ace, and lots of diamond values make this feel liek a hand better suited for notrump. 4NT needs to be a place to play rather than cooperative (to cooperate, South can bid a suit). 

 

Bidding is all about context. An answer that is right in some situations is wrong in others. Please be careful whenever you add a convention to learn the context of its use. If you think 4NT is always Blackwood, think again.