Partnership Understanding
By Mike Lawrence

IT DIDN'T WORK

Here is the entire hand. West led a club, and seven hearts was quickly down three when West got a galling ruff to end the debacle. Since North can make six notrump by guessing well, the cost was around 1700 points. It does not get much more expensive than that.

WHAT WENT WRONG?

The players were on different wave lengths.

The problem was that each player was using a different version of their ace asking convention. North South were using a convention widely used in tournaments called Key Card Blackwood. The theory is that the king of trumps is counted as an ace meaning there are five important cards to show rather than four. South thought he was showing two key cards (the ace and king of hearts) when he bid five hearts. North thought that South was showing two aces. As far as he was concerned, he thought that all the aces were accounted for and he was just continuing on the off chance that South could produce a couple of kings.

North, on the other hand, didn't think Key Card Blackwood applied on this sequence. A small matter of definition. When North continued with five no trump, South showed his one outside king (remember, in his mind, he had already "shown" his heart king). North decided that six no trump was the best spot and bid it. South, in the meantime was thinking that partner's five no trump bid promised all the aces and he decided to continue to seven hearts on the basis of his seventh heart and perhaps because he was feeling a little lucky.

The moral is simple. If you use science, you have to be prepared to handle all its ramifications (believe me, they exist).

P.S. If West hadn't led a club, South could have made seven hearts by squeezing West in spades and diamonds.