[straube]

Spades are trump, 5N is specific king ask

4N-5H
5N-6C (showing CK)
6D (asks for diamond king)

What does 6H show? The diamond king and the heart king? Can it say "sorry, no diamond king but I do have the heart king if that helps"? Because conceivably it could.

What would 7C show? I don't see the point of having it show a doubleton club, but I can see how it might help to show the CQ if 7N is in the offing.

[blackshoe]

I much prefer what Romex calls "the Spiral Scan". After the initial key card response, the next step (unless it's a signoff) asks for cards in the following order: trump Q (unless already shown), K of a side suit bid by asker, or if no such suit, K of a side suit (if there is one) bid by the replyer, then Ks of side suits in ascending order, Qs in the same order, Js (if it gets that far) in the same order. So, if Spades are trumps, and no side suits were bid:

4N-5C (not saying about the ♠Q)
5D-....Do you have the ♠Q?
....5H.Nope
....5S.Yes, but not the ♣K
....5NT.Yes, and the ♣K but not the ♦K
and so on.

Suppose it was

4N-5H (2 KC, no ♠Q)
5S.....Signoff
5N.....♣K?
and so on. In this auction, if the partnership has some way to know that asker has at least two KC himself, then 5♠ is not a signoff, it asks for the ♣K (since with 4 KC, they should be in at least 6).

Using this method, in your auction above 6♣ would deny the ♣K, and 6♥ would deny the ♦K. 6♦ instead of 6♣ would show both minor suit kings.

[Siegmund]

If you are already accustomed to cuebidding and have a cuebidding structure you know well and like, you may find it easiest to just agree "everything from the response to 5N upwards is a cuebid." Cuts way down on misunderstandings, and saves you from memorizing another long list of rules about how a reply in a previously bid suit vs. a previously bypassed suit is different.

(That is, it is my preference for 6D not to ask about DK, but to show DK and imply concern about HK or CQ; for 6H to show hearts and in effect be an asking bid for the missing diamond, etc.)

The effect of maximally efficient cuebidding is practically the same as spiral scan: each step upward by one partner changes what the first card he asks about it, each step upward by the other promises one additional useful feature. The difference is whether the bid that initiates the sequence - 6D in your example - is asking about diamonds or saying not to worry about diamonds.

I read about Spiral Scan in the Romex books and never quite wrapped my head around it for a long time (part of the problem was that a lot of spiral scan users have an artificial order for scanning, rather than scanning the suit named by each step)... then when I read Brashler's "Sweep Q-Bids" I suddenly became an instant believer in that version of the concept.

[akhare]

Siegmund, on 2010-December-31, 00:43, said:

I read about Spiral Scan in the Romex books and never quite wrapped my head around it for a long time (part of the problem was that a lot of spiral scan users have an artificial order for scanning, rather than scanning the suit named by each step)... then when I read Brashler's "Sweep Q-Bids" I suddenly became an instant believer in that version of the concept.

Seems very interesting -- can you post more details on the "Sweep Q-bids"?

[mgoetze]

Siegmund, on 2010-December-31, 00:43, said:

(part of the problem was that a lot of spiral scan users have an artificial order for scanning, rather than scanning the suit named by each step)

Uhm, spiral scan with "the suit named by each step" just can't work. Anyway, ♣♦♥♠ isn't all that artificial, is it? Or do you have the same problem with suit preference signals?

[mike777]

straube, on 2010-December-30, 20:39, said:

Spades are trump, 5N is specific king ask

4N-5H
5N-6C (showing CK)
6D (asks for diamond king)

What does 6H show? The diamond king and the heart king? Can it say "sorry, no diamond king but I do have the heart king if that helps"? Because conceivably it could.

What would 7C show? I don't see the point of having it show a doubleton club, but I can see how it might help to show the CQ if 7N is in the offing.

prfer showing rather than asking, it seems to work just fine except for a few magazine type hands.

so over 5h you can bid 6c or 6d or you can bid 5nt to ask pard to show kings.

so here I can bid 5nt..pard bids 6c...I bid 6h(I assume i got kh) and pard knows I am looking for KD.

If I have zero kings...maybe pard should be the one bidding rkc not me!

yes 7c would show the club Q

[Free]

straube, on 2010-December-30, 20:39, said:

What does 6H show? The diamond king and the heart king? Can it say "sorry, no diamond king but I do have the heart king if that helps"? Because conceivably it could.

Funny, not long ago I had this discussion with one of my f2f partners.

For me this denies ♦K and shows ♥K. With both Kings (so all 3) we should just bid past 6NT (7♣ could show ♣Q for example). With the ♦K we just bid grand. When partner wants us to bid grand only with all 3 kings he should start a specific King ask followed by "signing off" in slam (here 6♠) after the lowest response (after 6♦ or 6♥ it's a true signoff, looking for a lower King). There may be a very rare case where this approach doesn't work, but I have yet to encounter one. I won't even try to construct one...

[Trinidad]

straube, on 2010-December-30, 20:39, said:

Spades are trump, 5N is specific king ask

4N-5H
5N-6C (showing CK)
6D (asks for diamond king)

What does 6H show? The diamond king and the heart king? Can it say "sorry, no diamond king but I do have the heart king if that helps"? Because conceivably it could.

What would 7C show? I don't see the point of having it show a doubleton club, but I can see how it might help to show the CQ if 7N is in the offing.

The "short" answer:

- If partner asks for the ♦K and you have it, you will bid a grand slam. That means that you can afford to bid past 6♠ immediately. You have bids like 6NT to suggest 7NT.
- It is possible that your side can make a grand with any red king. The 6♦ asking bid caters to this: Partner asks for the lower one, knowing that you will still have room (6♥) to show the higher one.

- The third option: Partner will need all three kings to bid the grand. There is no room for partner to figure out if you had both red kings and the ♣K. But what on earth did you bid 6♣ for if you had all the kings?!?!? Partner would hardly ask for kings if he wouldn't want you to bid the grand with all of them, would he? So with all three kings, bid past 6♠ immediately. Thus, 6♥ is not needed to show the ♦K and ♥K, since you can't have both.

Rik

P.S. There are situations where the "King ask" does not ask for kings. It then just shows that all keycards are there and invites a grand (e.g. based on a trick source). In that case, having three kings may not be enough to bid the grand. Both players will have to rely on a good understanding of the auction (e.g. who is limited? who isn't?) to be able to recognize what is going on. In essence, this is similar to the difference between a quantitative 4NT and an ace asking 4NT.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Spades are trump...

5NT ( specific K-ask ) - 6C ( cK = cheapest bid K )
6D ( 2nd K-ask ) - ??

6H = hK which is the next cheapest bid K
6S = no more K's
6NT = dK but no hK ( NT shows the feature of the "asking suit", Diam in this case )

[Trinidad]

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2010-December-31, 17:43, said:

Spades are trump...

5NT ( specific K-ask ) - 6C ( cK = cheapest bid K )
6D ( 2nd K-ask ) - ??

6H = hK which is the next cheapest bid K
6S = no more K's
6NT = dK but no hK ( NT shows the feature of the "asking suit", Diam in this case )

That would lead to a sad result if you need the ♥K for contracts above 6♠.

The method of asking for the ♥K with 6♥ and the ♦K or either red king with 6♦ avoids that problem.

Rik

[Zelandakh]

The key point to note here is that Responder cannot posess all 3 kings or they would have responded 6NT to 5NT. Thus 6D is a specific king ask for the DK and 6H an ask for the HK. It is thus obvious that 6H over 6D must show the HK and deny the DK.

4NT - 5H
5NT -
... - 6C = CK, may have a red suit king
... - 6D = DK, may have HK
... - 6H = HK only
... - 6S = no side king
... - 6N = all 3 side kings

and

4NT - 5H
5NT - 6C

6D = asks for DK (but partner can still show HK)
6H = asks for HK

This is the default method for RKCB follow-ups as I know them.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

♦

TWO4BRIDGE, on 2010-December-31, 17:43, said:

Spades are trump...

5NT ( specific K-ask ) - 6C ( cK = cheapest bid K )
6D ( 2nd K-ask ) - ??

6H = hK which is the next cheapest bid K
6S = no more K's
6NT = dK but no hK ( NT shows the feature of the "asking suit", Diam in this case )

See additions and clarifications below...

Hellooo, Zel .... long time no see :-)

I just reviewed my notes for the "2nd K-ask " :
[EDIT: The source of this aspect of RKC was compiled by a fellow nicknamed "PriorKnowledge" and was derived from several sources including Washington Standard by Steve Robinson and Eddie Kantar’s web-site (which has since been removed). ] .

Spades are trump...

5NT ( specific K-ask ) - 6C ( ♣K = cheapest bid K )
6D ( 2nd K-ask and specifically "asks for" the ♦K ) - ??

6H = denies ♦K but have ♥K ( can bid this since it is below 6-trump )
6S = no more K's
6NT* = have ♦K ( NT shows the feature of the "asking suit", Diam in this case ) but denies ♥K
7D = ♦KQ
7H = ♦K AND ♥K
7S = singleton ♦
7NT = "unexpected source of tricks" eg. ♦K Q J T x ( however, 7NT with this holding would be made after the 1st K-ask; whereas something like ♦KQx together with ♥or ♣KQx would qualify for a 7NT bid after the 2nd K-ask.

__________________________________________________________
* 6NT ( showing ♦K this way allows "asker" to chose the final contract )

An "older version" said to bid 7-trump with the "asked for King " , but as noted above, you can utilize
7-trump to show a singleton in the "asked for suit".