Norman four notrump

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This article concerns contract bridge and uses terminology associated with the game. See Contract bridge glossary for an explanation of unfamiliar words or phrases.

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The Norman four notrump convention is a bidding convention in contract bridge intended to be used to investigate the slam possibility of the combined hands of the partnership. It allows one partner to gain information on the 'richness' of aces and kings (the so-called control count) in the other partner's hand.

With this convention, a bid of 4NT asks partner how many controls he/she is holding. An ace counts as one control and a king as a half control, lower ranking cards count zero.^[1] The replies to the Norman 4NT asking bid are:^[2]

5♣ : less than 1½ controls

5♦ : 1½ controls

5♥ : 2 controls

5♠ : 2½ controls

5NT  : 3 controls

etc.

The convention was devised by Norman de Villiers Hart and Sir Norman Bennett and was once popular in England. It was incorporated into the Vienna System and variants of it have been used in the San Francisco convention and the Blue Club system. It has largely been superseded by ace finding conventions, in particular the Blackwood convention and its variants.

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