[Cyberyeti]

Partner and I disagreed on the meaning of a bid here:

4N (blackwood)-5♦-5♥(queen ask) and the next hand doubles, what are pass and redouble ?

[bobmcc]

I like redouble denies and pass shows Q

[mikeh]

In my most detailed partnership, we have a lot of relays and have a meta rule that any time an as,in bid is doubled, redouble shows whatever the first step would have been absent the double, pass shows the second step and bid show the third step upwards

Not necessarily optimum but it saves on memory work.

So redouble shows whatever 5S would have shown, pass whatever 5N would have shown, 5S whatever 6C would have been, etc.

The basic idea is that, when they offer us additional bidding room, we use it.

Now, for us, using 4N as keycard means we’re in spades. We use kickback in the other suits.

[Cyberyeti]

mikeh, on 2023-July-22, 13:55, said:

In my most detailed partnership, we have a lot of relays and have a meta rule that any time an as,in bid is doubled, redouble shows whatever the first step would have been absent the double, pass shows the second step and bid show the third step upwards

Not necessarily optimum but it saves on memory work.

So redouble shows whatever 5S would have shown, pass whatever 5N would have shown, 5S whatever 6C would have been, etc.

The basic idea is that, when they offer us additional bidding room, we use it.

Now, for us, using 4N as keycard means we’re in spades. We use kickback in the other suits.

Same re kickback in most sequences, but we don't have the relays. Partner plays it as you do.

I'm more used to the situation where (particularly when the lead is about to come through my hand as in this case) partner redoubles with first round diamond control and passes with second

[Gilithin]

I think the best way of using Pass here is to fix the issue of position. Assuming Doubler is not on Opening Lead, you can use Pass to deny having A, K, Q or a shortage in the doubled suit. This caters to the situation when they have a positional, cashing AQ. If Asker is not worried about this, they can use XX to re-ask. Similarly, rather than XX replacing the cheapest call (as in ROPI), I think in this specific situation it should show the trump queen plus the king of the doubled suit, which will typically be the most expensive positive response. This keeps the negative response as a return to the trump suit. Whatever you do here, it should follow the same pattern as for lower level lead-directing doubles such as after control bids. In the end, as long as you are using the extra steps usefully, you are doing ok and it is better to have a decent system you will remember than an optimal one that you sometimes forget.

[gszes]

PASS NO QUEEN and less than a king extra than I have shown so far. This prevents gamesmanship by opps that know my system. They can't x hearts (when it is trumps) and force us to the 6 level
XX NO QUEEN and at least a KING BETTER than I have shown so far. This might allow us to bid a small slam missing the trump Q with confidence or at least happier about playing xx if hearts trumps.

[paulg]

mikeh, on 2023-July-22, 13:55, said:

In my most detailed partnership, we have a lot of relays and have a meta rule that any time an as, in bid is doubled, redouble shows whatever the first step would have been absent the double, pass shows the second step and bid show the third step upwards

We have a similar meta rule except we use pass as the first step and redouble as the second, by both relayer and relay responder.

However we do not use step responses over the queen ask, we show specific kings, so we use a different method. Pass shows that we would have bid the doubled suit, albeit at a level higher, and redouble just shows extra values without a normal response.

The reason to break our meta rule is that it happens rarely and bidding 5NT to show a 6♦ bid [in this auction] is more likely to be forgotten and the extra space is less useful.