About reverses: I have never heard of "black-out". Perhaps it is the same as Ingerberman?
In my experience, reverses are a major source of trouble. Just about everyone agrees that they are a one round force (Goren did not agree with that as I recall) but beyond that ideas vary a lot as to which bids are natural/artificial, which bide are forcing/passable.game-forcing.
This is from the pinned note at BBO Discussion Forums> Bridge-Related Discussion> Intermediate and Advanced Bridge Discussion of mikeh about the reverse from 1
to 2
.
All of this is fine, and works reasonably well, but for those interested in something even better: use Ingberman.
This convention is similar to the lebensohl-type 2N above: in fact, on many hands, it works exactly the same. Ingberman use the cheaper of 2N and 4th suit forcing as the ostensibly negative bid. As with the lebensohl-like 2N, use of the Ingberman bid is the only way that the partnership is allowed to stop short of game.
This is an improvement on 2N, when it happens, because it increases the chance of the strong hand declaring notrump. After all, a very common hand pattern for a reverse is 5431 with a stiff in responder's suit.
Say you hold x AQx KQxx AKJxx and partner responds to your 1♣ opening with 1♠. You reverse to 2♦. If partner were to have a weak hand, without rebiddable ♠s, he has to bid 2N and now you play 3 of a minor or 3N from the wrong side. By allowing him to use 4th suit 2♥ here as the artificial, usually negative response, you as opener get to bid 2N! From the right side.
Change your hand to AQx x KQxx AQJxx and have the same opening, response and reverse. If he has to bid 2N, you are torn between 3♣ and 3♠. If he has 5♠s, 3♠ is definitely best, but if he has 10xxx Kxx xxx Kxx, you want to play 3♣. How do you know?
Well, allow him to bid 2♥ and you bid 2♠: a perfect description of your 3=1=4=5 hand. Now you find the 5-3 ♠s (and find decent games when he'd have passed 3♣ over 2N) while allowing him to play 2♠ rather than 3, or allowing him to intelligently decide between playing ♠s and ♣s.
Also, responder can now comfortably bid 2N naturally when 4th suit would be available: establishing a gf, showing stopper(s) in the unbid suit and allowing opener free rein at the 3-level to further describe his hand.
For this reason, many experts and advancing players use Ingberman.
My feeling with the hand in question is that after 1
- 1
- 2
I do not know if I want to play this in clubs or hearts (the stiff
K is adequate support) and I do not know whether I want to play in game or slam ( can they cash the
AK?) When there is a lack of discussion I often just take the best shot so I am fine with seeing if partner has something, who knows exactly what. in
and then jumping to 6
. It's likely to be right.
But for discussion, we can consider just what means what. Whether it is called Ingberman or black-box is not critical, but whether the fourth suit is natural, or artificial game forcing, or artificial and potentially weak, needs to be settled. People have very different views on this and on many other ideas about reverses. Forcing for one round? Yes. Beyond that? Let's hope.
Added: Looking at the hands:
AK5
9
KQ109
A10876
opposite
10963,
AQJ1074,
-
KQ9
I guess 6
is a better contract than 6
. How are they to stop us, no matter where the location of the
K, from taking five tricks in hearts, five in clubs and two in spades? Maybe a horrible heart split or maybe clubs are 4-1 and they can negotiate a ruff.
Playing in clubs it is less clear that we can set up and run the hearts. As it was played, the
opening lead was won and the
9 was led to the T. Suppose it loses and a
comes back to the K and, suppose, the A. Uh oh. If we ruff, we can no longer draw trump ending in the hand with the long hearts. A bit unlucky, but probably 6
is the better contract. Can that be worked figured out during the auction? Beats me.