[phoenixmj]

Hi - we recently added baby blackwood and we THINK it is alertable under acbl, but not sure. Many ace asking are delayed alerts.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance

[steve2005]

"Ace-asking bids at the level of 3NT or below and usages on the first round (other than Blackwood and Gerber as described above), require an Immediate Alert"
page 11 of alert procedures link here -> ACBL Alert procedure

[phoenixmj]

steve2005, on 2019-July-15, 10:31, said:

"Ace-asking bids at the level of 3NT or below and usages on the first round (other than Blackwood and Gerber as described above), require an Immediate Alert"
page 11 of alert procedures link here -> ACBL Alert procedure

thanks so much.

How about responses? Once you alert as keycard ask - is the response delayed alert?

[mikestar13]

Steve correctly states the alert regs, but what are the situations you use Baby Blackwood. To me it seems worse than 4♣ Gerber, which is pretty bad in many sequences. You are even more likely to need 3NT natural than 4♣ natural. Baby Blackwood is a usable if your side has a nine-card major suit fit, but there are better convention uses for 3NT even then.

Let's say we are at three spades and we have agreed a nine card spade fit. 3NT Baby Blackwood is harmless, but 4NT works just as well if you are using it properly: we have twelve tricks if we aren't missing two keycards. One possibility for bids over 3♠:

3NT= minimum but good cards for slam, partner can bid a control to try for slam or 4NT Blackwood or sign off in 4♠.
4♣/4♦/4♥= Control in the bid suit trying for slam.

4♠ = minimum and bad cards for slam.
4NT = Blackwood.

[mikestar13]

Steve correctly states the alert regs, but what are the situations you use Baby Blackwood. To me it seems worse than 4♣ Gerber, which is pretty bad in many sequences. You are even more likely to need 3NT natural than 4♣ natural. Baby Blackwood is a usable if your side has a nine-card major suit fit, but there are better convention uses for 3NT even then.

Let's say we are at three spades and we have agreed a nine card spade fit. 3NT Baby Blackwood is harmless, but 4NT works just as well if you are using it properly: we have twelve tricks if we aren't missing two keycards. One possibility for bids over 3♠:

3NT= minimum but good cards for slam, partner can bid a control to try for slam or 4NT Blackwood or sign off in 4♠.
4♣/4♦/4♥= Control in the bid suit trying for slam.

4♠ = minimum and bad cards for slam.
4NT = Blackwood.

[mikeh]

Probably the best treatment for baby blackwood would be to abandon it. Baby Blackwood is like a lot of bad conventions. Somebody somewhere thought it would be a neat idea, since it saves a lot of bidding space, but they didn't think it through: it 'solves' something that should rarely, if ever, need solving.

I can't recall seeing any competent pair get into trouble using 4N as keycard when spades are trump. It is theoretically possible to get into some difficulties using 4N as keycard when hearts are trump, but I've not seen it in at least 30 years. Minors are more of a problem, since the 'wrong' response can drive you a doomed slam, but that usually means that the person using keycard should not have used keycard! Anyway, kickback is easy enough to learn, and probably less prone to 'forgets' than is 3N.

And of course, and most importantly, using 3N for some other purpose is solving more important and more common issues than one solves by using it as ace-asking. There are several ways one can use 3N in auctions in which one is always going to play a major. Serious or non-serious 3N are the most common but not the only options available.

One useful idea, when deciding whether to adopt a convention, is to look at what the top players play, which is not that hard, since one can usually find their convention cards in various on-line locations. This is not to see what they play, since there will be a wide variety, and much of what they play is idiosyncratic or at the least selected to mesh with the rest of their system. However, it is informative to see, for example, than nobody plays baby blackwood or mini-roman or gerber (other than in very clearly defined actions over a notrump call), and so on. If these ideas, which many eager less-experienced players adopt, were effective, don't you think that those who earn their living playing competitive bridge might use them?

[pescetom]

mikeh, on 2019-July-15, 11:39, said:

Probably the best treatment for baby blackwood would be to abandon it. Baby Blackwood is like a lot of bad conventions. Somebody somewhere thought it would be a neat idea, since it saves a lot of bidding space, but they didn't think it through: it 'solves' something that should rarely, if ever, need solving.

I can't recall seeing any competent pair get into trouble using 4N as keycard when spades are trump. It is theoretically possible to get into some difficulties using 4N as keycard when hearts are trump, but I've not seen it in at least 30 years. Minors are more of a problem, since the 'wrong' response can drive you a doomed slam, but that usually means that the person using keycard should not have used keycard! Anyway, kickback is easy enough to learn, and probably less prone to 'forgets' than is 3N.

And of course, and most importantly, using 3N for some other purpose is solving more important and more common issues than one solves by using it as ace-asking. There are several ways one can use 3N in auctions in which one is always going to play a major. Serious or non-serious 3N are the most common but not the only options available.

One useful idea, when deciding whether to adopt a convention, is to look at what the top players play, which is not that hard, since one can usually find their convention cards in various on-line locations. This is not to see what they play, since there will be a wide variety, and much of what they play is idiosyncratic or at the least selected to mesh with the rest of their system. However, it is informative to see, for example, than nobody plays baby blackwood or mini-roman or gerber (other than in very clearly defined actions over a notrump call), and so on. If these ideas, which many eager less-experienced players adopt, were effective, don't you think that those who earn their living playing competitive bridge might use them?

I agree except for 4N as keycard over hearts (where I have got into some difficulties in a lot less than 30 years) and the risk of kickback (which is easy enough to learn, but not to apply or enforce upon multiple partners). I compromised by deciding on crosswood over the minors and 4NT 1403 over both majors, but to each his own poison. Certainly 3NT non-serious makes more sense than a request for keycards here.

[phoenixmj]

Very interesting reading. We just came across it and it sounded like a good addition - assuming that we agree on a trump suit early in the auction and have slam interest. The fact that you can do it at a lower level is nice. Seems like if we agree upon a major with 8 or 9 cards fit - we would not want to play NT - so it would not be a problem.

But we have not really "tried it".

The points listed against its use make sense -so perhaps we do need to rethink.

Really appreciate the feedback.

[Vampyr]

What exactly is a delayed alert?

[Stephen Tu]

Vampyr, on 2019-July-15, 17:16, said:

What exactly is a delayed alert?

In ACBL, artificial calls above 3nt starting with the *2nd* round of the auction (mainly high splinters by opener, ace/keycard asks, etc.) are alerted after the auction is over rather than when the bid is made, thus "delayed alert".

[neilkaz]

Stephen Tu, on 2019-July-15, 18:12, said:

In ACBL, artificial calls above 3nt starting with the *2nd* round of the auction (mainly high splinters by opener, ace/keycard asks, etc.) are alerted after the auction is over rather than when the bid is made, thus "delayed alert".

I've never understood the purpose of this! For example, when the bidding goes 1♦-1♠-4♣ and you have to ask "splinter?" if you care, you've also alerted the opps if they've had a mix up.

So what is the reason for not being required to alert instantly?

[Stephen Tu]

neilkaz, on 2019-July-15, 18:22, said:

I've never understood the purpose of this! For example, when the bidding goes 1♦-1♠-4♣ and you have to ask "splinter?" if you care, you've also alerted the opps if they've had a mix up.

So what is the reason for not being required to alert instantly?

The theory is that after opps have both passed once, they probably are extremely unlikely to want to compete in the auction at this level, and the alerts are more likely to help the bidding side determine whether or not they had a misunderstanding and unethically wriggle out than to help the opponents make a bidding decision (who prob at most want to make a lead directing double and maybe don't need an alert to know when to do so).

[steve2005]

mikestar13, on 2019-July-15, 11:11, said:

To me it seems worse than 4♣ Gerber

but poster didnt ask if a good convention but if alertable

[Vampyr]

Stephen Tu, on 2019-July-15, 19:11, said:

The theory is that after opps have both passed once, they probably are extremely unlikely to want to compete in the auction at this level, and the alerts are more likely to help the bidding side determine whether or not they had a misunderstanding and unethically wriggle out than to help the opponents make a bidding decision (who prob at most want to make a lead directing double and maybe don't need an alert to know when to do so).

It’s sad to have a regulation to stop people from cheating.

It’s still not a useful procedure. If the opponents want an explanation of the whole auction, and they usually do, they will ask for one. Sometimes it is volunteered. Getting the explanations in order allows the opponent to ask questions. Just picking out bids that are in some mysterious set of “delayed alert bids” seems like a waste of time. If for some reason the opponents don’t want an explanation of the auction, the procedure is unnecessary, and if they do want an explanation, it is, well, also unnecessary.

[nige1]

I used to play that when our side had bid 2 or 3 suits, some of responder's jumps were RKC:
A jump in the 4th suit (and 4♣/4♦) would agree one of our suits and ask for key-cards (exploring for slam below game).
e,g, 1♦ - 1♥ - 2♣ - 3♠ = RKC for ♥
Pretty crude, but it was simple, easy to remember, and sometimes helped us to avoid embarrassing defeats in five-level contracts due to bad breaks..

[pescetom]

steve2005, on 2019-July-15, 19:44, said:

but poster didnt ask if a good convention but if alertable

But as poster's question had already been answered and it is a particularly bad convention it seems appropriate to point that out. This is I&A forum after all.

[phoenixmj]

I just reread everything here and I really appreciate all of the comments. Perhaps this is why I never heard of baby blackwood until a bit over a week ago. It is clearly not commonly used. Sounded like a good idea - but I agree that it could complicate things and the big concern with this is that only one partner remembers.

My partner and I had discussed it before a team game a couple of weeks ago. I have to confess that I did not make the 3N bid because I was not sure partner would recognize it. Did not want to mess up our teammates. However, the hand was a "tight" slam in hearts and the extra bidding room would have been very handy. I went with the 4N version instead because the thought of partner passing 3N was just too painful. In our discussion after, partner said he was onboard with the 3N baby blackwood if we agreed upon a suit at or below the 3 level.

Now - it does seem to me that we would likely never want to stop in 3N if we had agreed upon a major - but I suppose with a flatish hand 3N might well play better in some instances.

Anyway - food for thought about the convention.

Regarding experts and their conventions - one thing that always strikes me is that the very experienced experts have "other ways" of doing something that might be beyond someone my level. For example, I have been told that experts don't use LTC very much. But I think it is because they have developed a gut feel for the hands that only comes with a lot of experience. People like me sometimes rely on more technical "tools" that do not require quite as much judgement - but perhaps with the idea that we will develop that gut feel as we play more and improve.

Thanks again for all of the info. I truly appreciate it.

[Stephen Tu]

You seem to have fallen into the common int trap of utilizing blackwood as a slam TRY. Blackwood is supposed to be slam AVOIDANCE; you have decided you have 12 tricks unless off two keycards or one plus the queen. The problem is blackwood doesn't tell you if partner has extras or if a key suit is stopped. Maybe you are only off one ace, but you are off AK of one suit. Or maybe you have enough keycards and not two tricks off top, but run out of tricks.

Good bidders resolve these other issues with cue bidding, if they trot out rkc the 5 level should nearly always be safe barring really bad breaks, there's very rarely advantage from the lower ask. Nobody good I've ever seen use 3nt as ace asking; actually I've never heard of this till now. Far more common, if willing to give up 3nt with established major fit, are either "non-serious" or "serious" 3nt, basically a mark time bid that denies or shows extras, vs cues bypassing 3nt, to help in auctions where no one is limited. If one hand's range is already tightly defined, another useful possibility is a shortness ask. When hearts are trumps it can also be useful to swap meanings of 3s/3nt for structure consistency.

[msjennifer]

Sir,After the second round onwards ,as far as I understand, any call above 3NT need not be alerted.So any artificial bid like the so called baby Blackwood need not be alerted if the bid exceeds 3NT.

[mikestar13]

msjennifer, on 2019-July-17, 01:45, said:

Sir,After the second round onwards ,as far as I understand, any call above 3NT need not be alerted.So any artificial bid like the so called baby Blackwood need not be alerted if the bid exceeds 3NT.

There is no immediate alert, but there will be a delayed alert after the bidding unless the bid is 4♣ or 4NT asking for aces or key cards