Norman four notrump (also Norman) is a slam

bidding convention A bridge convention is an agreement about an artificial or a set of related artificial calls. Calls made during the auction phase of a contract bridge game convey information about the player's card holdings. Calls may be "natural" (that is, are b ...

in the partnership

card game A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games (such as poker). A small number of card ga ...

contract bridge Contract bridge, or simply bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard 52-card deck. In its basic format, it is played by four players in two competing partnerships, with partners sitting opposite each other around a table. Millions ...

designed to help the partnership choose among the five-, six-, and seven-levels for the final contract. Norman four notrump is an alternative to the

Blackwood convention 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 ac ...

family. Used when the contract level can be better determined by knowing the numbers of aces and kings that are "missing" in the partnership's two hands, the convention is initiated by a bid of 4NT to ask that partner provide information about his ace and king holdings. The response is coded to enable inference about the precise numbers of aces and kings in the replying hand. The Norman scale, where an ace counts as one control and a king as half a control, is the basis of the following responses to the 4NT asking bid: :5: 0 to 1 controls indicating either (a) no aces or kings, or (b) one or two kings or (c) one ace :5: 1½ controls indicating either (a) one ace and one king or (b) three kings :5: 2 controls indicating either (a) two aces or (b) one ace and two kings or (c) four kings :5: 2½ controls indicating either (a) one ace and three kings or (b) two aces and a king :5NT : 3 controls indicating (a) one ace and four kings or (b) two aces and two kings or (c) three aces :6: 3½ controls indicating either (a) two aces and three kings or (b) three aces and one king :etcetera Norman 4NT was a component of the Vienna System developed in the 1930s and the sixth edition of ''The Official Encyclopedia of Bridge'' page 309. of 2001 noted that it "once was popular in England, where it is credited to Norman de Villiers Hart and Sir Norman Bennet." Some later conventions show aces and kings in one hand by one bid, using the same or comparable scale, such as Blue Team replies to opening 1 and similar responses to opening 2, strong and artificial. The San Francisco convention gave kings one-third the weight of aces, for greater accuracy at the cost of using more bidding space. As slam bidding conventions at or near the 4NT level, Norman and San Francisco have been superseded by the

and its variants, which show at once only the number of aces or keycards, and show kings subsequently if at all.

References

{{WPCBIndex Bridge conventions