Special bidding conventions

A convention is a certain bid or set of bids that do not convey the natural meaning, but are artificial bids meant to convey certain information to the bidder's partner. For instance, the Stayman bid mentioned over 1NT is a convention. The bid of 2 is not meant to convey a club suit but rather intended to ask the 1NT bidder if he has a 4 card major suit.

Blackwood

This a very powerful convention that is used by almost every player in the game of bridge. Whenever you and partner have found a place to play (a suit or no-trump) and you are sure you have a chance for slam, information about where your partner's points are can be very useful. Therefore, the Blackwood convention was created. This says that over a non-NT bid, a bid of 4NT is asking for how many aces partner has. The responses are:

5 - 0 or 4 aces
5 - 1 aces
5 - 2 aces
5 - 3 aces.

If your partnership has all four aces, 5NT is a continuation of the asking sequence asking partner to repond with the number of kings he holds. The responses are:

6 - 0 or 4 kings
6 - 1 kings
6 - 2 kings
6 - 3 kings.

Remember: only continue by asking for kings when you are sure you have all the aces or you may end up in a 7-level contract missing an ace, and you can be sure the defense will take that ace right away!

Gerber

This is another very helpful convention to learn. As you recall, in the description of the Blackwood convention, we said that the Blackwood 4NT bid should only be used over a non-no-trump bid. So how do you ask for aces after your side has just bid no-trump? This is where the Gerber convention comes in. The Gerber convention says that over a no-trump bid, a jump to 4 is now asking for aces. The responses are similar to those used in Blackwood; they are:

4 - 0 or 4 aces
4 - 1 aces
4 - 2 aces
4NT - 3 aces.

Again if your partnership has all four aces, 5 is a continuation of the asking sequence asking partner to repond with the number of kings he holds. The responses are:

5 - 0 or 4 kings
5 - 1 kings
5 - 2 kings
5NT - 3 kings.

Remember: Please read the warning under the Blackwood conventional bid.

Quantitative Slam Try

This is another useful convention. This one however isn't quite as commonly used as the two above. QST says that when partner opens with 1NT, 2NT, or 3NT and you have enough points for slam (see first page for points necessary for slam), you can now respond with 4 NT and this asks partner to bid 6NT with the maximum number of points for his bid (18 for 1NT, 21 for 2NT, 27 for 3NT) and to pass otherwise.