Cover Cards

Cover Cards is a term for a method of valuation, which was devised by Mr. George Rosenkranz and which is a part of the Romex System. However, this form of valuation has found application in almost any method.

Note that a cover card is a card (honor or extra trump) which is known to compensate one of partner's losers. For example, a King in trumps covers partner's trump loser.

Aces and Kings of are Cover Cards, and also Queens, but only when they prove to be effective during the valuation. If the hand of the opener is measured in terms of losers, the responder can judge or valuate how many losers he can cover.

Responder holds: Q7 KQ64 K873 642. The auction has proceeded as follows:

1	Pass	1NT	Pass
2	Pass	4

The opener, in general, may have at most seven losers, and the responder has four Cover Cards in the valuation of his holding. These four Cover Cards are the Queen of Spades, the King and Queen of Hearts, and the King of Diamonds. The concept is that four of the seven losers in the hand of the opener are covered by the four Cover Cards in the hand of the responder. This leaves only three losers, and the responder bids a game contract of 4.

However, if the Queen of Spades were perhaps the Queen of Clubs, then this card could not be called a Cover Card, since the opener has not bid Clubs. This means that the responder has only three Cover Cards and should not bid a game contract, because this would mean that there are four losers, instead of three losers.

A player's High Card Points are not directly convertible to LTC, instead based on hand shape and controlling honors. However, once a fit is found, the following table provides a rough translation between HCP, LTC, and "Cover Cards" (partner's Aces, King, and trump Queen holdings).

Many players find the math easier to subtract responder's Cover Cards from opener's LTC to determine their side's anticipated losers and lead to more accurate slam bidding. For instance:

Partner opening bid equates to 6 LTC and responder has 3 cover cards.

Then 6 - 3 = 3 losers; 3 losers equal 10 winners, enough for a major suit game.

Using LTC, the formula is 6 LTC + 8 LTC = 14 LTC, where 24 - 14 LTC = 10 tricks.