Responding to Blackwood
Answering Blackwood would seem to be one of the simpler tasks one faces. Veteran players will be familiar with some issues, two of which are raised in this question posed by a correspondent.
You hold: 
Q 6, 
K J T 8 7 5, 
K , 
A J 9 4
At IMP’s (vul not provided) you open 1 and your LHO bids 3. Partner cries 4NT and the opponents are now quiet.
First question: Do you show the heart queen with your response?
Let us suppose that you just bid 5. Partner now tries for the grand with 5NT. Do you accept?
Let us suppose that you merely show your diamond King with 6. Partner now signs off in 6.
My correspondent wants to know if you have anything left. I have a rather strong opinion, but I want to hear from others first. What do you think?
What would partner’s 4S have been? If he is ironclad for 4 hearts on this sequence then it is appropriate to show the q.
He was under a fair amount of pressure when he bid 4N. It may be that it was the best of a bad set of choices. But he has continued to make positive noises after that.
5N should guarantee all the keys meaning he has the HQ. Is my 6th heart valuable after that?
Would the club king have made him more excited?
I think that is the crux of the matter… what could i have said over 5N that would have made him happy and does my concealed heart length make up for it. I think the answer is no.
I pass 6H
February 27, 2006 Collins
I guess ethics is also involved here.
Say, responder thought for some time before bidding 6H (or for that matter, even if he bid a fast 6H) you now know more about his hand than over a 5NT bid one round ago. So a pass seems mandatory. If you deem this hand enough for grand slam, which I do, you should bid it directly over 5NT.
Answering king should relinquish the captaincy to partner and his sign off here should be respected as final.
Btw,I would show HQ in my response to Blackwood, for J10 & extra trump length should gurantee no trump loser most of the time. I think the decision is a close one, and it probably does not matter.
P.S. After reading the Welcome Messages posted by the webmaster, I know this site is kept primarily for the purpose of faciliating discussions among friends and team-mates. I wonder if participation by an outsider like me will be some nuisance. If so, just mention it & I will stop posting comments. Thanks!
February 28, 2006 Simon Cheung
i am ambivalent about showing the hq. i would pass 6h. if my having the dk didn’t enable partner to bid 7, i can’t go on . I need pard to have aqxxx of dia. to make 7. pard had to let me know we had all the “keys” just in case i could bid 7. ax, aqxx, axxx, kxx
March 2, 2006 bernie miller
If partner promisses always 4-card trumph with 4NT I would show the queen, if he can bid 4NT with 3-card fit (and I think he can, certainly in this sequence where he’s under presure) no.
Why would I bid 7 hearts? Partner is telling me he doesn’t have enough with DK, he possibly wanted me to have CK instead or 2 kings. After looking at my cards again, I still don’t see a second king. So I pass 6H.
March 3, 2006 Tom Wuyts
I would not show the Queen. Although I do enjoy finding the trump Q in grand slams. :)
Over 6H I would pass. I have a sixth heart which is good, but there is nothing else attractive about my hand, and we likely have a club loser. Also in standard bidding, partner might have stretched for 4N and then had to bid 5N to confirm all the keycards in case I actually had a good hand. I like the treatment where after keycards are shown 1 under the trump suit at the 6 level says: “I have no grand slam interest, but we do have all the keycards, so feel free to overrule me.” And 5N is a real GS try.
March 7, 2006 Josh Sher
I would not show the Q. Partner may have only 3 hearts.
When a partner takes control of a hand when his partner is unlimited, he must indicate whether or not a loser has been found. Therefore, 5NT does not promise anything extra.
On this hand it can be inferred that partner has trump Q, 2nd round club control, and his diamonds are not AQ(J)xx. It would seem that the grand is at worst on a club finesse and it might be reasonable to bid it. (If partner had the KQ of clubs he would still only be able to count 11 tricks.)
March 19, 2006 Phil Warden
Partner chose to bid 4NT instead of 4S immediately (or inventing a minor followed by a 4S Q over 4H or a retreat to 5H over a minor raise) so we must assume that was the best approach. In that context I feel that you should show the trump queen even though it might cause a later review of your bidding in the bar. Are you trying to win the event or the post game discussion?
OK, so you chose not to show the queen. I accept that decision as reasonable. When partner bid 5NT confirming all the key cards (and issuing permission to you to bid a grand slam) you can visualize the three missing Aces, the trump Q and a second round club control. You would have cheerfully opened with Qxx KJxxx Kxx Ax so your hand has a bit more potential than you’ve shown since you “concealed your trump queen”. Why mess around with a 6D bid? The worst case scenario (at the table) is going to be a club finesse if you bid 7H and your dinner break is going to be ruined if you bid 7H after your partner signs off in 6H. So I’ve been too high before. sigh! Bid the grand.
March 20, 2006 Bill Wickham