In the partnership card game contract bridge , the Blackwood convention is a bidding convention developed by Easley Blackwood in 1933 and still widely used in the modern game. Its purpose is to enable the partnership to explore its possession of aces, kings and in some variants, the queen of trumps to judge whether a slam would be a feasible contract. The essence of the convention is the use of an artificial 4NT bid made under certain conditions to ask partner how many aces he has; responses by partner are made in step-wise fashion to indicate the number held.
53-509: After developing the concept in 1933, Easley Blackwood submitted an article proposing his slam-seeking convention to The Bridge World magazine but it was rejected. Nevertheless, it gained awareness and use amongst players and was written about by several authors. In his own first publication on the convention in 1949, Easley Blackwood comments on the entries in books by others and noted that "...in every one of these books, they have it wrong!" He pointed out several misconceptions and concluded with
106-530: A bid is Kickback, a control bid or preference for a different strain: W E East intended 4 ♥ as Kickback, but West thought it was secondary support for hearts, and decided to pass with minimum values. As result, a reasonable grand slam in diamonds was missed. An established partnership might have agreed that as hearts were not supported after opener's rebid, 4 ♥ cannot possibly show support, and must be ace asking in diamonds. "Redwood"
159-527: A continuing bidding battle. Each month, two leading pairs compete, bidding deals from actual play (taken from old tournament reports or submitted by readers)." CTC is a feature that debuted in The Bridge Journal, a periodical edited by Jeff Rubens which was discontinued when Rubens joined the staff of TBW. At that point TBW took over the operation and the publication of CTC. The format is to give each pair ten hands to bid, just as though they were at
212-444: A convention as Stayman . Rubens, a math teacher, employs advanced ideas on everything from opening bids to opening leads. Expert selectors would have been hard-pressed to put together a less likely partnership. Yet from their base of operations in the closed room this pair kept sending through perfect results on hand after hand, a performance that even the vaunted Blue Team would have found difficult to top. Certainly their opponents in
265-450: A favored treatment. When different experts preferred different systems it became difficult to reach consensus and the comments became less valuable. Therefore, in 1967 Kaplan and Rubens instituted a poll of experts to determine their bidding preferences (e.g., four-card or five-card majors, strong or weak two-bids, doubles of overcalls negative or for penalty, limit or forcing jump raises, etc.). Solvers were also invited to participate in
318-411: A fifteen-point summary of the "complete and official" Blackwood Slam Convention. A synopsis of that summary follows: Several versions of Blackwood are available: Standard Blackwood, Roman Blackwood and Roman Key Card Blackwood (RKC or RKCB). All versions are initiated by a bid of four notrump ( 4NT ), and the entire family of conventions may be called Blackwood 4NT in both versions, or Key Card 4NT in
371-557: A means by which readers could test themselves on the Culbertson System , and for years it was held that there was only one correct answer to each problem – there being only one correct answer in the context of the Culbertson System. In the 1940s a system of partial credits was instituted, with the "correct" answer receiving 100 points and lesser awards going to other answers. A related change occurred in 1951, when
424-437: A new pair, the "Challengers." More recently the contest has been altered: TBW invites a pair to participate for exactly two consecutive months (first as Newcomers, then as Incumbents); if a pair wins at least one of its two matches, it is invited to return at a later time, and possibly take part in a CTC elimination tournament. During the period that a pair could compete indefinitely, Matt Granovetter and Ron Rubin established
477-448: A partner who has previously shown, for example, 12-15 range of high points is unlikely to hold 3 aces for his bid, etc. Even Roman Blackwood convention has several variations, revolving around 5 ♥ and 5 ♠ responses. In all variants, they denote 2 aces. One variation is that 5 ♠ shows extra values, while 5 ♥ does not. In other variations, responses 5 ♥ - 5NT denote specific combinations of aces (same color, same rank, or "mixed"). If
530-510: A rationale, is to provide a means of tracking how expert preferences have changed over the years. TBW regards the MSC as its most successful feature; certainly it is its longest running. It has been imitated in one guise or another by most bridge periodicals. Several sample MSC problems, answers, and commentary can be found at TBW's web site . Challenge the Champs (CTC) is, in the words of TBW, "…
583-550: Is a jump, many partnerships use the Gerber convention instead of the Blackwood family: 4 ♣ asks for the number of aces or key cards. Where both sides are bidding, 4NT is often played as a conventional takeout asking partner to help choose one of two or three suits, similar to a lower-level takeout double or cuebid reply to such a double. Where standard Blackwood 4NT is in force, a four notrump bid (4NT) asks partner to disclose
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#1732765440352636-415: Is a variation of Kickback that is only used when a minor suit is trumps. A 4 level bid in the suit above the agreed trump suit is the ace / key card ask and the name comes from the fact that this bid will always be a red suit: 4 ♦ – RKCB for clubs 4 ♥ – RKCB for diamonds Once key cards have been identified the next step bid (other than trumps) can be used to ask for Kings. One advantage of this approach
689-564: Is advocated by Bernard Magee as being simpler for club players, as with RKCB players are sometimes unsure whether partner holds 0 or 3 key cards, or 1 or 4. "Kickback" is the variant of RKCB devised by Jeff Rubens in accordance with the Useful Space Principle . The step responses are the same as in RKCB, but the ask is not necessarily 4NT. Instead it is the 4-level bid immediately above the agreed trump suit; i.e.: Kickback has
742-486: Is an American bridge player, editor, and writer of books including Secrets of Winning Bridge and Expert Bridge Simplified . He is best known for long association with The Bridge World monthly magazine, as co-editor under Edgar Kaplan from 1967 and as editor and publisher since Kaplan's death in 1997. Rubens is from Brooklyn, New York . Rubens attended Stuyvesant High School in New York City, where he
795-526: Is dated January 1967. Jeff Rubens acted as Kaplan's co-editor until Kaplan's death in 1997, when Rubens became editor and publisher. Largely because of its emphasis on IMP and matchpoint play, TBW is of interest primarily to tournament players. Several features appear in each issue. The most popular are: Prior to 1967, editorials had appeared infrequently in TBW. Under the Kaplan/Rubens editorship,
848-408: Is for the positive calls to show a feature, such as a king in that suit, and 6 of the trump suit can show the queen of trumps with no outside kings. Roman Key Card Blackwood is predicated on existence of a trump suit, which determines which of the four kings and queens responder should show as key cards. Trump agreement is not necessary, however. One common rule is that the last suit bid before 4NT bid
901-509: Is not 4NT, but the void suit — Voidwood is made by jumping on level 4 or 5 in the void suit after a fit has been found, for example: Bids of 5 ♣ , 5 ♦ and 5 ♥ present a Voidwood, denoting the void in the suit bid and asking for other key cards. The responses are, as in RKCB: The Bridge World The Bridge World ( TBW ), the oldest continuously published magazine about contract bridge ,
954-406: Is not the trump suit, 5 ♠ asks responder to bid 5NT. That is useful when the reply to 4NT bypasses the intended trump suit but also shows that slam is likely to be a poor contract because two aces are missing.) The continuation bid of 5NT asks for the number of kings according to the same code of replies at the six-level: 6 ♣ shows no kings or four, etc. Asking for the number of kings confirms that
1007-441: Is simply a raise and a quantitative invitation to six notrump, a small slam. Over an intervening four of a suit by opponents it is usually played as a competitive raise, expecting to play four notrump. Those natural interpretations may hold in other auctions where the partnership has previously bid notrump naturally or shown a balanced hand conventionally. In some situations where 4NT is a quantitative invitation, especially where 4 ♣
1060-414: Is that it avoids the potential for misunderstanding that can occur when using Minorwood but one disadvantage is that it uses up one more bid (than Minorwood) and might constrain the bidding later when asking for Kings or Queens. Using "Redwood," the ace/key card ask of 4NT is still used when the trump suit is a major (hearts or spades). "Minorwood" is a variation of Blackwood, in which the minor suit which
1113-473: Is that it conserves bidding space. For example, the use of Redwood reduces the risk of a misunderstanding but uses up one more bid and might constrain the bidding later when asking for Kings or Queens. Exclusion Blackwood or Voidwood . was devised by Bobby Goldman as an attempt to resolve the situation when the Blackwood-asker has a void. In that case, he is not interested in the partner's ace in
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#17327654403521166-460: Is the key suit, lacking trump agreement. Some partnerships use the club response to show 1 or 4 and the diamond response to show 3 or none, dubbed "1430" (coincidentally the score for making a vulnerable small slam in a major suit), with the original version being dubbed "3014" when distinction is necessary. In order to facilitate the Queen Ask, an experts' version has been developed, where "1430"
1219-460: Is used by the strong hand and "3014" is used by the weak hand. There are specific rules which determine when the asker hand is the weak one and when it is the strong one. A half-way house between standard Blackwood and RKCB is Keycard Blackwood. Again there are five key cards, including the trump king, but unlike RKCB, the queen of trumps is not considered. 5♣ – 0 or 4 key cards 5 ♦ – 1 or 5 key cards 5 ♥ – 2 key cards 5♠ – 3 key cards This
1272-560: The American Contract Bridge League inaugurated their own Hall of Fame and adopted the initial nine inducted in the Bridge World Hall of Fame. Since 1968, the magazine has periodically polled experts on various bidding treatments and conventions in order to develop a unified system of bidding known as Bridge World Standard. There have been five versions of the system with the latest revision being
1325-494: The 2017 edition. Bridge World Standard has evolved with the practices of North American experts and, similar to the Standard American Yellow Card system promulgated by the American Contract Bridge League , is offered as a system "for use by impromptu or casual partnerships, and as a basis for discussion by those who wish to formulate their own system." Jeff Rubens Jeff Rubens (born 1941)
1378-938: The Challengers in CTC. The May 1977 issue reported at length on a cheating scandal in the US international team trials in Houston Texas, during which the accused, Richard Katz and Larry Cohen (not the same Larry Cohen who has written extensively on the Law of Total Tricks ), resigned from the ACBL. Katz and Cohen were the CTC Challengers during that same month. Bits and Pieces is principally a letters-to-the-editor column. It first appeared in January 1955. The very first letter printed in
1431-473: The Club's directorship, and well known players such as Bobby Wolff, Jeff Rubens, Eric Kokish, Kit Woolsey, David Berkowitz, Larry Cohen, Bart Bramley, Danny Kleinman, Steve Landen, Karen McCallum, and Barry Rigal have all served as directors. In 2005, the MSC changed from a rotation of four directors to a rotation of six. The form of the MSC has also changed markedly over the years. It was originally conceived as
1484-463: The Editorial became a monthly feature, and occupies a privileged position, appearing directly after the table of contents. The Editorial usually discusses issues that are both timely and of import to tournament bridge players, and from time to time provides a forum for points of view that are not shared by the editorial staff. A non-random sample of the topics that have appeared in the Editorial over
1537-446: The MSC was conducted by the same person each month: Samuel Fry Jr. from 1932 through 1945 and Albert H. Morehead from 1945 until his death in 1966. In January 1967, when Kaplan and Rubens took over TBW's editorship, a rotating group of directors was established: Moyse, Alfred Sheinwold, Howard Schenken, and Alan Truscott each directed the Club once every four months. Retirements, editorial disagreements, and health problems led to changes in
1590-499: The Men's Pairs and Men's Teams. Seven years later he played with B. Jay Becker on teams that won the 1972 Spingold national championship and the subsequent trial to represent North America in the world championship. Becker was 69, then the oldest participant in a Bermuda Bowl tournament, and famously conservative. According to Charles Goren 's report, Becker is an ultraconservative who has often refused to play even so widely accepted
1643-495: The Trials could not begin to match it. At Guarujá, Brazil , they finished fourth of five teams in the 1973 Bermuda Bowl . Rubens and Paul Heitner established the short-lived Bridge Journal in the mid-1960s. It is best known for Journalist leads . The Bridge World monthly was established by Ely and Josephine Culbertson in 1929. Edgar Kaplan acquired it from McCall Corporation in 1966 and served as publisher and editor from
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1696-485: The advantage that it saves bidding space and, especially for minor-suit fits, provides safety at the 5-level if the required key cards are missing. Because the Kickback bid would otherwise be a control bid, 4NT is usually substituted as the control bid in that suit (e.g., 4NT is a control bid in hearts if the agreed trump suit is diamonds). The drawback is that in unpracticed partnerships there can be confusion as to whether
1749-462: The answers provided by experts other than the director were printed, along with their comments. According to TBW's history of the MSC , this was the magazine's first explicit acknowledgment that such a panel existed. The inclusion of expert comments has continued ever since. Although most of the monthly problems concern bidding, under the Kaplan/Rubens editorship there has been one problem each month concerning leads, nearly always opening leads. As to
1802-553: The bid suit plus one ace. A variation of the standard Blackwood convention, known as Roman Blackwood , was popularized by the Italian Blue Team in the 1960s. In Roman Blackwood, the responses are more ambiguous, but more space-conserving. The basic outline of responses is: In practice, the ambiguity is unlikely to occur, as a strength difference between hands with 0 or 1 and 3 or 4 aces is big enough that it can be established in previous rounds of bidding. In other words,
1855-412: The column asked the correct play in a contract of 4 ♥ , and the answer was to take an Ann Gallagher finesse . The letters tend not to concern questions of bidding or play – these are dealt with in other features such as Pro et Contra (discontinued after Oswald Jacoby's death in 1984). They do tend to focus on issues raised in editorials, editorial style (e.g., matters such as gender-neutral prose, and
1908-428: The key card variation. There are other 4NT conventions, such as Culbertson 4-5 Notrump , Norman Four Notrump and San Francisco , but almost all bridge partnerships employ some member of the Blackwood family (which includes Byzantine Blackwood ) as part of their slam-investigation methods. If the partnership's preceding call is a natural bid in notrump, then 4NT is usually played as natural. Over an opposing pass it
1961-413: The number of aces in his hand. With no aces or four, partner replies 5 ♣ ; with one, two, or three aces, 5 ♦ , 5 ♥ , or 5 ♠ , respectively. The difference between no aces and four is clear to the Blackwood bidder (unless the partnership lacks all four) so one member of the partnership knows the combined number of aces. That is often sufficient to set the final contract. (A common agreement is that when spades
2014-417: The panel's moderator. This arrangement provides a means for the reader to improve his bidding skills, and to get a glimpse of the thought processes of the experts. Readers (or, in the context of the MSC, "solvers") are invited to submit their monthly scores to TBW. An annual competition is held for the highest 12-month total; the winner is invited to participate on the expert panel for a year. For many years,
2067-405: The partners agree will be trumps is itself used as the ace/key card ask. The ask will be at the four level. Hence: 4 ♣ – RKCB for clubs 4 ♦ – RKCB for diamonds One disadvantage to this convention is that either the partnership must agree to lose the natural 4 level bid in trumps or have clear agreement on which sequences are slam seeking and which are natural bids. The advantage of this approach
2120-402: The partnership holds all four aces, so partner may reply at the seven level with expectation of taking thirteen tricks. A void may be as good as an ace in some situations but it should not be counted as an ace. Some experts (Kantar for one) recommend the 5NT reply to 4NT – the cheapest with no standard assigned meaning – to show a void plus two aces and six of a suit to show a void in
2173-412: The past 40 years: The MSC is a combination of quiz and commentary. Several problem hands, along with the bidding so far on each, are presented and the reader is asked what call he would make (the number of problems per month has varied, but since at least the 1950s it has settled in at eight per issue). The answers to each question are given in the next issue, along with comments by expert panelists and by
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2226-463: The poll, but their role was restricted to breaking ties among the experts. The result was Bridge World Standard 1968, now known as BWS 68. There have been three major revisions of the system, in 1984, 1994, 2001, and 2017. BWS has always been intended as a platform for answering MSC problems, but also as a system that two experienced players could use if they had never partnered one another. Another use for BWS, perhaps intended in 1967 but never touted as
2279-468: The problems that concern bidding, the experts' answers and comments lost clarity as the Culbertson/Goren consensus (four-card majors, strong notrump, strong two-bids, two-over-one showing only about 10 HCP ) began to fall apart during the 1950s and 1960s. The experts' answers became influenced less by judgment and more by system, some experts even abstaining on occasion because they could not use
2332-413: The queen of trumps. Although the replies to 4NT are more compressed, it is almost always possible to infer which number of keycards is correct: 0 or 3, 1 or 4, 2 or 5. Evidence for that inference includes the entire auction as well as the number of key cards that the 4NT bidder holds. The 5 ♥ and 5 ♠ replies with 2 or 5 key cards also deny and show the trump queen, respectively. (Responder may also show
2385-462: The queen with extra length in trumps, where the ace and king will probably draw all outstanding cards in the suit.) The 5 ♣ and 5 ♦ replies tell nothing about the queen or extra length, but the 4NT bidder may ask about that using the cheapest bid other than five of the trump suit. The code for replies to that "queen ask" vary; a common rule is that the cheapest bid in the trump suit denies the queen or extra length and any other call shows it. An option
2438-545: The querying partner ascertains that all aces are present, he can continue as follows: Roman Key Card Blackwood (RKCB) has largely replaced the standard version among tournament players. It developed from the Roman Blackwood variant (see above). According to RKCB there are five equivalent key cards rather than just the four aces: the trump king is counted as the fifth key card. The key card replies to 4NT are more compressed than standard ones and they also begin to locate
2491-687: The record for consecutive wins at 10, from July 1975 through April 1976, using the Ultimate Club , a strong club system with many relay sequences. In May 1976 Granovetter-Rubin lost to Kerri and Mike Shuman by the record combined score of 86-85. CTC has been involved with some odd coincidences. As reported by John Kelly Karasek in a 1978 issue, the March 1975 issue both reported on the Facchini-Zucchelli foot-tapping incident in that year's Bermuda Bowl , and featured Facchini-Zucchelli as
2544-417: The table. Awards for different contracts are pre-set, and the results are scored as though they were matchpoints awarded on a 12 top. Over ten hands (again quoting from TBW): "… in the fifties is over average, in the sixties might win, higher is phenomenal." In its original form, a pair would continue in CTC so long as it kept winning. The prior month's winners were termed the "Champs" and would compete against
2597-464: The use of hyphens), unusual occurrences, laws and proprieties, and how sponsoring organizations such as the ACBL and the EBL regulate the game. The column also contains corrections and amplifications, book and product reviews, and occasional solicitations of readers' opinions. Some features that do not appear according to a fixed schedule, or that have run their course: The concept for a Bridge Hall of Fame
2650-539: The void suit, as he already has the first-round control; partner's ace would present a duplicated value in that case. Many players, even experts, refuse to play Exclusion Blackwood because of the potential disaster of forgetting the agreement. It is usually played as the Roman Key Card Blackwood, with only four key cards: the three Aces outside the void suit and the King of trumps. However, the asking bid
2703-669: Was captain of the math team in 1957, the year he graduated. He has an undergraduate degree from Cornell University and a graduate degree from Brandeis University . He won seven North American championship events in the 1960s-70s, represented North America in the 1973 world championship, and "gave up competitive bridge for family reasons" soon after. Rubens is a retired professor of mathematics and computer science at Pace University in New York. Rubens became an ACBL Life Master at 20 and won two North American championship events (then called "national championships") at age 23 in 1965,
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#17327654403522756-744: Was founded in 1929 by Ely Culbertson . It has since been regarded as the game's principal journal, publicizing technical advances in bidding and the play of the cards, discussions of ethical issues, bridge politics and leading personalities, and reports of major tournaments. Culbertson edited TBW (assisted by a staff of well known writers and players such as Josephine Culbertson , Alfred Sheinwold , Samuel Fry Jr. , Richard L. Frey , Albert H. Morehead , and Alphonse "Sonny" Moyse Jr. ) until 1943. Morehead then became editor and continued until 1946, when Moyse took over. The McCall Corporation purchased TBW in 1963, and subsequently sold it to Edgar Kaplan . Kaplan became editor and publisher in late 1966; his first issue
2809-577: Was originated with Lee Hazen, an early Life Master, and undertaken by The Bridge World magazine by a ballet poll of 115 leading bridge columnists in the United States; the top three names receiving at least thirty percent of the cast votes were elected in the inaugural year. The magazine continued with elections in 1965 and 1966 but then discontinued sponsorship. The elected members to the Bridge World's Hall of Fame were: Subsequently, in 1995,
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