Responding to Blackwood — The Sequel
I said that I had a strong opinion about this. The press of activities seems to have caused me more six months to state it, more than my usual delay!
I agree with Simon Cheung (who is most welcome to post, btw, as are others who have joined in).
I find that even players who deem themselves to be experts do not plan their Blackwood sequences. If you are asking, you should already know what your next move will be.
If you are responding, a reasonable delay is always in order, since care is the essence. Once you make a response, you cannot decide to move later.
In particular, if partner issues a try with 5NT, you respond, and then partner delays before signing off, you are finished. There was a case that went before a committee in the World Championships many years ago. Hamilton and Eisenberg had such an auction. The responder had a clear-cut grand slam bid over 5NT, but just answered kings. When he moved again after a delay, the Italians protested. The USA prevailed on that one, but we all prefer not to be in a committee on such a key hand.
It is much better to figure out whether you can accept over 5NT and so so at that point. As to the question, I would have shown the 
Q, and I would not move again after showing the 
K.
I don’t know the specific hand that was appealed, but I generally disagree with the notion that the partner who answered kings to 5NT and then raised 6-suit to 7-suit is the partner who bears the blame for the situation. Maybe he would have corrected 7-suit to 7NT, or maybe he was hoping to induce a 7NT call from partner. I would agree with the earlier comment about not bidding Blackwood unless you know what you will do over the response: The partner who bid 5NT should be ready to make his next bid in tempo.
Also, ” a reasonable delay” in responding to 4NT should mean just that…long enough to make sure you remember what you are playing and don’t pull the wrong card. If you take so long that partner suspects you were deciding whether or not a void was useful enough to show and decided against it, that’s bad.
December 8, 2006 Christopher Monsour