Irony!

In August Boehm's "Boehm on Bridge" in the December Bridge Bulletin, he noted that irony is frequent in literature but rare in bridge. Strangely, irony in December of 2012 occurred in bridge literature.

In Mr. Boehm's article, he mentioned an auction where with AQ-AQJ5-KQ10942-8, you end up bidding 4NT as Roman Key Card Blackwood (hearts agreed) to find two key cards, but cannot find the grand opposite two Aces (which should make in context) because one of partner's key cards might be the heart king. Quoting Edgar Kaplan for "the trump king is not the same as an ace," he notes the irony that RKCB players would have to stop in the small slam while traditional Blackwood players could bid the grand.

The irony is that on December 2, I released through Master Point Press my new book, called Variable Key Card Blackwood. My new VKCB is a means of improving upon RKCB to, among other things, identify which key cards replier has, namely whether the holding is two aces or an ace and the trump king. In the auction that Mr. Boehm provides (1S-X-P-4H-P-?), doubler would bid 4S as Kickback VKCB. Partner would respond 4NT, showing two key cards. Doubler (with this specific hand) would then be able to bid 5C to ask whether partner has the trump Queen (already known) and, if not, which form of key cards he has. Replier would bid 5D to deny the trump Queen but show that his two key cards are both aces.

So, ironically, in the same month that we published Variable Key Card Blackwood, August Boehm spots this issue and bemoans the lack of a solution in RKCB, in an article about irony!