History of the Blackwood Convention

Ask any bridge player, even a beginner, to name one convention. Nine times out of ten, they’ll say “Blackwood.” The 4NT ace-asking bid is so fundamental to modern bridge that it’s hard to imagine the game without it. But before 1933, players had no reliable way to check for aces before bidding slam. They’d bid aggressively and sometimes land in laydown slams. More often, they’d bid slams off two aces and watch the opponents cash the first two tricks.

The Blackwood Convention didn’t just solve this problem—it revolutionized how players thought about slam bidding. And unlike some bridge innovations, we know exactly who invented it, when, and why.

Easley Blackwood: The Unlikely Innovator

Easley Blackwood wasn’t a professional bridge player. He was an insurance executive from Indianapolis who played serious bridge for enjoyment. Born in 1903 in Alabama, he moved to Indianapolis in his twenties and became an active member of the local bridge scene. He was a good player—good enough to compete in regional tournaments—but not one of the famous names of the era.

What Blackwood had was a methodical mind and a willingness to think deeply about bridge problems. In the early 1930s, he kept running into the same frustrating situation: he and his partner would have enough combined strength for slam, but no way to verify they had the aces. They’d either bid conservatively and miss good slams, or bid hopefully and occasionally go down in slams off two aces.

This wasn’t just Blackwood’s problem—it was every bridge player’s problem. The standard methods were inadequate:

Direct asking bids required complex agreements about which suit asked for controls. They were unwieldy and only worked in specific sequences.

Cue-bidding showed first-round controls but didn’t distinguish between aces and voids. You might think partner had the ace of hearts when they actually had a void.

Culbertson asking bids used 4♣ and 4♦ to ask about controls, but the responses were complicated and the method never caught on widely.

Players needed something simple, something that worked in any auction, something even average players could remember and use correctly.

The Invention: New Year’s Eve, 1933

The story, as Blackwood told it years later, was beautifully specific. On New Year’s Eve 1933, he was playing in a tournament in Indianapolis. He and his partner had a disaster hand where they bid 6♥ missing two aces. The opponents cashed the ace of spades and ace of diamonds for an immediate set. Blackwood sat there, frustrated, thinking there had to be a better way.

That night, he worked out the details. The solution was elegant in its simplicity:

4NT asks partner how many aces they hold
5♣ = 0 or 4 aces
5♦ = 1 ace
5♥ = 2 aces
5♠ = 3 aces

That was it. No complex sequences, no suit-specific agreements. Just one question—how many aces?—and four simple answers. If you were considering slam, you bid 4NT. Based on partner’s response, you’d know whether slam was safe.

The response structure was clever. The 0-or-4 response in 5♣ worked because if you were bidding slam and partner showed no aces, you knew you held all four yourself. The step responses (one step per ace) made the answers easy to remember and distinguish.

Testing and Adoption

Blackwood started using his convention in local games. It worked perfectly. He could check for aces before committing to slam, avoiding disasters while bidding confident slams when all the aces were present. Word spread through the Indianapolis bridge community—Blackwood had a method that actually worked.

In 1933, Blackwood wrote about his convention in the Bridge World magazine. Unlike some inventors who jealously guarded their methods, Blackwood wanted his convention to be freely used. He explained it clearly, showed example hands, and encouraged readers to adopt it.

The response was immediate. Bridge players everywhere recognized the solution to a problem they’d been struggling with for years. The convention spread rapidly through tournaments, bridge clubs, and rubber bridge games. By 1935, it was standard equipment in serious bridge. By 1940, even casual players knew about Blackwood.

Why It Worked So Well

The Blackwood Convention succeeded where other ace-asking methods failed for several reasons:

Universal applicability: Unlike conventions that only worked after specific sequences, Blackwood worked any time you could afford to bid 4NT. Didn’t matter what the previous auction was—4NT asked for aces.

Easy to remember: Four responses for four ace counts, in steps. A beginner could learn it in five minutes and remember it forever.

Unambiguous: When partner bid 5♦, you knew they had exactly one ace. No confusion, no interpretation needed.

Safe: Most of the time, even if you discovered you were missing two aces, you could stop in five of your suit. The convention rarely got you too high.

Immediately useful: You didn’t need sophisticated judgment to use basic Blackwood. If you had enough points for slam and a good trump fit, you bid 4NT. Based on the answer, you either bid slam or signed off.

The Follow-Up: Asking for Kings

Blackwood quickly realized his convention could extend to kings. If you bid 4NT and partner showed enough aces for slam to be safe, you could bid 5NT to ask for kings. The responses were similar:

6♣ = 0 kings
6♦ = 1 king
6♥ = 2 kings
6♠ = 3 kings

This king-asking feature was less commonly used (because you were already at the six-level), but it allowed partnerships to intelligently bid grand slams when they held all the aces and kings.

As players used Blackwood more, they discovered situations where it didn’t work perfectly:

Void problems: If you had a void, you didn’t need the ace in that suit, but Blackwood counted it anyway. You might stop in 5♥ when 6♥ was cold because partner showed one ace when you needed two.

Space issues: When clubs was your suit, discovering you were off two aces meant going down in 6♣—you couldn’t stop below slam.

Minor suit slams: If diamonds or clubs was your suit, you needed to bid 5NT or 6m to play, but the Blackwood responses might push you past that level.

These limitations led to refinements:

1430 and 3014 Roman Key Card Blackwood (1970s-1980s): Instead of asking for aces, asked for “key cards”—the four aces plus the king of trumps. Also added responses that showed the trump queen.

Exclusion Blackwood (1980s): A jump to five of a suit (skipping 4NT) asked for aces excluding that suit, solving the void problem.

Kickback (1990s): Used the bid just above four of the trump suit as ace-asking, providing more bidding space.

But all these refinements built on Blackwood’s foundation. They used the same basic idea: ask a simple question, get a step response showing count.

Easley Blackwood’s Later Life

Blackwood remained active in bridge for decades. He wrote several books, including “Blackwood on Slams” (1956), which explored slam bidding in depth. He played in national tournaments through the 1970s and was inducted into the ACBL Hall of Fame in 1983.

He lived to see his convention become the most widely-used convention in bridge history. Every system, from basic SAYC to complex relay methods, included some form of Blackwood. It appeared in every beginner’s book, every bridge column, every lesson on slam bidding.

Blackwood died in 1992 at age 89. By then, his convention had been used in millions of hands by millions of players. It had prevented countless disasters and enabled countless successful slams. More than any other single innovation, it made slam bidding accessible to average players.

The Legacy: Ace-Asking Forever

The Blackwood Convention fundamentally changed bridge. Before 1933, slam bidding was an expert’s game, requiring complex agreements and sophisticated judgment. After Blackwood, any player with a strong hand and a fit could check for aces and bid slam confidently.

The convention established several principles that influenced all later bidding theory:

Artificial bids are powerful: Blackwood proved that giving up the natural meaning of a bid could provide enormous benefits. It paved the way for transfers, splinters, and countless other artificial conventions.

Simple is better: Complex asking-bid systems never caught on. Blackwood’s simple step responses beat more theoretically pure methods because players could actually remember and use them.

Ace location matters more than points: Before Blackwood, players often bid slams based on combined point count. Blackwood taught everyone that having 33 points didn’t help if the opponents could cash two aces.

Modern slam bidding has grown far more sophisticated, with key card Blackwood, control-showing cue bids, and complex relay systems. But it all traces back to Easley Blackwood’s New Year’s Eve insight in 1933: sometimes you just need to ask a simple question and get a clear answer.

The next time you bid 4NT, take a moment to appreciate what you’re doing. You’re using a convention that’s essentially unchanged from its 1933 form, invented by a insurance executive who wanted a better way to bid slams. It’s one of bridge’s most perfect innovations—so useful, so clear, so fundamental that it’s become inseparable from the game itself.

Easley Blackwood gave bridge players around the world a gift: the ability to bid slams without fear. That’s a legacy any inventor would be proud of.