Develop your bridge---The Blackwod convention

DEVELOP YOUR BRIDGE
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Blackwood

This is an ace-asking bid, usually employed when the partnership is thinking of a slam. There are several variations. Easley Blackwood was an American insurance agent born in 1903 who devised this convention which has been used universally for over 70 years. If you're not sure what sort of hands should involve you in Blackwood, have a look at this section on big hands.

A bid of 4 no-trumps asks the question--'Partner, how many aces do you have?' Note that we are unlikely to need this bid for any other reason. Responses are:

5 clubs--none or four

5 diamonds--one ace

5 hearts--two aces

5 spades--three aces

5 no-trumps asks for kings with the same pattern of responses. Remember that asking for kings takes you to the six-level anyway, so this is only helpful if you are thinking of a grand slam.

This approach is by far the simplest and most common method and one that I would strongly recommend if you are new to ace-asking.

4 no-trumps still asks for aces but the responses differ.

5 clubs--no aces or three aces

5 diamonds--one ace or four aces

5 hearts--two aces of the same colour (C )

5 spades--two aces of the same rank (R )

5 no-trumps--two 'odd' aces (O )

Five clubs then asks for kings with responses as for Gerber. Personally, I've never found Roman Blackwood particularly useful but you can see how it is designed to work, so that you will know exactly which two aces are held.

4 no-trumps still asks for aces but the responses provide information on key-cards (KC's ) which include the king of trumps as well as the four aces. The assumption is made that responder cannot have all five KC's.

5 clubs--no KC's or three KC's

5 diamonds-- one KC or four KC's

5 hearts-- two KC's

5 spades--two KC's and the queen of trumps

If you decide to try this one, there are some interesting further variations available. Whenever I've used it, I found myself unable to identify the trump suit ( if there was one ) and as a consequence was a mite confused. Despite my reticence, this approach appears to be favoured by Tony Forrester and Andrew Robson in their columns. After all, who am I?

General Considerations

Players must learn to anticipate the problems arising from an unhelpful response to an ace-asking bid eg if you can only bid to six clubs if partner has two aces, then 4NT with a 5D response is no use to you. In this case you must be prepared to avoid Blackwood and either stay out of the slam, or go for it.

Equally you must also have a way of reaching a five no-trump contract after a sequence such as 1H-3NT-4NT-5D when you needed two aces for the slam. In this case, five spades must be a request to sign off in five no-trumps---you cannot possibly be introducing a new suit at this stage!

You can play 1NT-4NT as a request for aces and it won't let you down. However, more experienced players use Gerber over 1NT and 2NT opening bids, which enables them to use 1NT- 4NT and 1NT-5NT as 'quantitative'. See below.

1NT-4NT---go to 6NT if your opening 1NT is a maximum. The 4NT hand has 19-21 points.

2NT-4NT---go to 6NT if your opening 2NT is a maximum. the 4NT hand has 11-13 points.

An alternative ace-asking method is Gerber. Have a look at this and you will see that the two can live side by side.