Improve Your Play #35

IMPROVE YOUR PLAY #35 with Larry Matheny

The Roman Keycard convention is a powerful tool. The keycards are the four aces plus the king in the agreed trump suit. The convention also lets you find out about the trump queen. Here it is in action.

Scoring: Matchpoints

Hand #35
Dlr	E
Vul	N-S

	832
	AK9875
	AK10
	A


	J1064
	Q53
	Q87654

	K654
	2
	9762
	K1032

	AQJ1097
	Q3
	J84
	J9

West	North	East	South
		Pass	2
Pass	4NT	Pass	5*
Pass	5	Pass	6
All Pass

*1 or 4 keycards

BIDDING: My partner in the South seat opened a weak two bid and my thoughts went immediately to slam. However, we sometimes open a weak two with a five card suit, so I was concerned about trump quality. The answer could be found with Keycard Blackwood. South's 5

response showed one or four keycards so I knew we were missing one important card. My 5

bid asked about the spade queen. His leap to 6

told me he held the lady but no outside king. Without the queen, he would have bid 5

.

PLAY: West lead a club and my partner quickly wrapped up thirteen tricks. He led the spade eight from dummy and continued with a small one to his hand. He then went back to dummy with a diamond to repeat the finesse. He discarded his losers on dummy's heart suit after ruffing the fourth round.

To realize the value of the convention, what would you have bid if South had denied the spade queen? What if his suit was: AJ9754 or K109854? Do you still want to be in slam?

Copyright ©2007 Larry Matheny.