Improve Your Play #54

IMPROVE YOUR PLAY #54 with Larry Matheny

The Roman Keycard convention is used to ask partner how many keycards (aces plus the king of the agreed trump suit) he holds. A useful feature of the convention is the ability to ask about the trump queen. See if you could have stayed out of this slam.

Scoring: Matchpoints

Hand #54
Dlr	W
Vul	N-S

	A854
	AJ6
	K4
	AQJ9

	QJ10
	109
	A9632
	874

	9
	87543
	875
	6532

	K7632
	KQ2
	QJ10
	K10

West	North	East	South
Pass	1	Pass	1
Pass	4	Pass	4NT*
Pass	5	Pass	5
Pass	5	All Pass

*Roman Keycard

BIDDING: North's leap to 4

showed 19+ points in support of spades. South knew they were in the slam zone and bid 4NT to ask about keycards. The 5

response showed 0-3 so South knew they were missing one keycard. His 5

bid asked about the queen of spades and North's return to the spade suit denied it. Knowing they were off a keycard and the trump queen, South gave up on slam.

PLAY: West led the diamond ace and waited on his spade trick. Many of the pairs reached the slam and felt very unlucky. It's true the slam would have succeeded if the outstanding trumps had divided 2-2, but that only occurs 40% of the time which makes it a bad proposition. At matchpoint scoring (pairs), you should not push for close games or slams. Take your plus scores.

This convention is very helpful but can also be dangerous. Be sure to research it and discuss with your partner before adding it to your card.

Copyright ©2007 Larry Matheny.