E X C L U S I O N   B L A C K W O O D


Exclusion Blackwood
Some players refer to this agreement as Voidwood

This agreement was developed by Bobby Goldman, who wanted to exclude a particular suit from the responses to Blackwood.  He recognized that a player who has a void generally only wants to know how many aces his partner has in the other suits, and his Exclusion Blackwood is a solution to this problem.

Bobby's treatise on this idea first appeared in The Bridge World in the May, 1981 issue.  Volume 52, No. 8.

Unfortunately, we get hands where this agreement would be useful perhaps once every couple of years, so many players are reluctant to play it for fear of forgetting it.  If you do, it will probably be a disaster.

Exclusion Blackwood can be played with the older standard version of Blackwood or any other system, such as Roman Key Card Blackwood.
    The Asking Bid is not 4NT.
    After agreement on a trump suit, a jump to a new suit at the 5-level shows a void in the bid suit, and asks partner how many aces he has, not included in the void suit.

    Responder uses step bids with the agreements the partnership prefers.  If you are playing RKCB, these are the steps:

        5   0 or 3 key cards
        5   1 or 4 key cards
        5   2 keycards - no Queen of trump  
        5   2 keycards - with the Queen
However, many players who normally play Roman Keycard prefer to use standard Blackwood step bids when an exclusion auction occurs.  (There's less ambiguity withy the standard method, and it's easier to remember.)

Roy Wilson