kickback Archives - Stellar Bridge

Kickback is a keycard asking bid which tries to keep the bidding lower, especially useful when the trump suit is a minor suit.

In short instead of using 4NT as the RKB asking bid you use the suit above the agreed suit.

Playing kickback you can play 3041 if you prefer which will swap steps 1 and 2 around.

Assuming you are responding with specific kings…that is you respond 6♣ to show the king of clubs or it shows 2 non touching kings…

The basic rules are:-

The king asking suit is a cue-bid of 5 of the next higher strain after the trump suit…so 5NT would still be a king ask when spades are trumps.
The negative response would be to bid 6 of the trump suit
The three kings response would be to bid 6 of the asking suit
The cheapest specific king – simply cue bid the king you have or paradox kings and bypassing a bid then denies that king
5NT response now shows the king of the asking suit

The secondary ask – A secondary ask you bid the next strain up
The negative response showing no additional kings is simply to bid 6 of the trump suit
The positive response is to bid 6 of the asking suit to show that king or 6NT if the response pushes to the 7 level
The 3rd round control ask positive would then be to bid 7NT

The queen ask is only employed after a 1st or 2nd step response to the ask.

a) 2NT (20-22) – 3♦ – 3♥ – 4♣ – 4♦ – 4♥ – 5♦ – 5♠ – 7♣

4♣ shows the second suit and 4♦ is kickback for clubs and 4♥ is one. 5♦ is the king ask and 5♠ shows that king.

b) 2NT (20-22) – 3♦ – 3♥ – 4♣ – 4♠ – 5♥ – 5♠ – 6♦ – 7♥

4♣ shows the second suit and 4♠ is kickback for hearts, 5♥ is two. 5♠ is the king ask and 6♦ is the king of diamonds.

c) 1NT (12-14) – 2♣ – 2♥ – 4♣ – 4♠ – 5♣ – 5♦ – 6♥

2♣ is Stayman and 4♣ is a splinter, 4♠ is now kickback and 5♣ shows 3 keycards, 5♦ asks for the trump queen and 6♥ is saying I have the queen.

Tag: kickback