Getting off the Blackwood-go-round
I've seen it happen more than once: you know that you want to play in no-trump, but wonder if it should be a game or a slam contract. You initiate Blackwood with a 4NT bid, and partner's response tells you that slamming is not a good idea. Now you'd like to stop in 5NT, but bidding 5NT sounds like an inquiry about kings, and lands you in 6NT anyway.
The simple solution, so simple it's easily overlooked, is to bid a suit in response to partner's ace-count bid. This should be corrected by partner into 5NT.
North | East | South | West | 1  | Pass | 2  | Pass |
3  | Pass | 3  | Pass |
| 3NT | Pass | 4NT* | Pass |
| 5 | Pass | 5 † | Pass |
| 5NT | Pass | Pass | Pass |
* Blackwood.
† Let's stop this madness.
posted by Paul @ 1:19 PM
3 comments:
Do you play gerber? Once it's been determined that you will be playing in NT, 4C asks for aces and uses the same step-wise responses. Gerber has an added advantage of being able to bail out at 4NT if you get a little too slap-happy. A bid of 4NT, (1NT - P - 4NT ...) is a quantitative invitation to 6NT. 'Bid 6 NT if you are at the top of your range'
I like Gerber as a jump to 4C after deciding to play in NT at the one or two level, but I don't like 4C over 3NT to be Gerber; it's too useful otherwise, in auctions like
1H - 2D
3C - 3NT
4C
where it might be a vote of no confidence in a NT contract, or in auctions where it might be useful as a control bid.
How helpful is that 1NT-4NT "quantitative" bid? The 1NT range is so tightly defined, 15-17 pts, does one queen in the opener's hand often make the difference between trying for slam or not?
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