[kenberg]

If someone likes Flannery I agree to play it. A comment while I was watching vugraph got me thinking. The pair, noy playing F, opened 1H and easily got to slam. A kib mentioned that he would have opened with an F 2D. OK, but then?

So I ask that you imagine your partner opens a Flannery 2D and you think slam is an option. If you have four hearts in your hand you can conclude that at other tables it will begin 1H-2NT, setting trump and showing good values. You have some catching up to do.

The Bridgeguys say that both 3C and 3D are natural and invitational bids, and that 4C and 4D are transfers to the corresponding major. So 2D-4C-4H-4NT would no doubt be keycard, but we are pretty high and have not yet learned much.

Steve Robinson, in Washington Standard, recommend that 3C be played as drop dead, and 3D be used to indicate slam possibilities. 3D forces 3H, after which responder sets spades as trump by bidding 3S, or sets hearts as trump by bidding anything other than 3S. This seems better to me. He also suggests that an immediate 2D-4m is rkc for the corresponding major. Perhaps so. Going further, perhaps the auction 2D-2NT-3somethng-4m should also be played as rkc. The ides is that responder can first uncover opener's shape this way. On some hands 2D-2NT-3C encourages responder, while 2D-2NT-3D gives responder reason to settle for game. The alternative of using 2D-2NT-3C-4C as cue bid perhaps has its uses, but someone sometime has to say what the trump suit is.


It is not every day that partner opens a Flannery 2D and I am thinking about slam, and I haven't seen this discussed much. But the I/A Forum probably has viewers like me who would like to hear about standard practice, if such a thing exists.

[johnu]

First, in general, if the kib is unknown (not an official commentator), check his self-rating. If he's expert or world class, you can give odds that he is an intermediate or less, certainly less than expert and discount anything that is written. If self rated less than expert, I can't think of any particular reason to think that the comment has any merit unless it agrees with your previously held understanding. That's not to say that players who aren't experts in real life don't have anything useful to say, but unless I know they have some expertise on the subject I'm not going to give it much credibility.

As far as what to bid over Flannery, I would like to see a hand, but the standard bid is 2NT asking for further description depending on what bids you play as forcing. Followups after the response are mostly undefined, but if opener shows a maximum, any non game bid is forcing. If opener shows a minimum after 3♥ (or ambiguous after 3♣/3♦), 4♣/4♦ are forcing.

I question using 3♥/3♠ as invitational as an unpassed hand. You can show that hand by bidding 2NT and then bidding 3 of a major. IMHO, these are better used as game forcing bids for slam range hands.

[rmnka447]

You've posted a good timely subject for discussion.

I'll admit to having been a Flannery user for years. I've had so many good results with the convention over the years tied in with the way it makes other bidding in a 2/1 GF context cleaner that it's been difficult to replace.

Using 4 ♣/4 ♦ as transfers to 4 ♥/4 ♠ was an original suggestion of the convention creator Bill Flannery from Pittsburgh. The idea being that there are certain hands where responder may want to have opener's hand concealed when playing 4 of a major. But in practice those hands come up so rarely that you could easily use those bids for something else. With one partner, those bids are used as RKCB respectively for ♥/♠. That leaves room for follow on asks, but still doesn't address those potential slams where specific controls are paramount.

But beyond that, we really haven't really outlined how to explore for slam other than by using the forcing 2 NT response to find out what opener's distribution is and try to proceed from there. So, I'm just as interested to hear about other's slam investigation methods if they exist.

[wank]

2nt relay. it's a narrow opening range in HCP terms and there are a limited number of possible shapes.

responder can just ask questions. no need to set hearts as trumps and conduct a real conversation.

[kenberg]

wank, on 2016-June-19, 14:57, said:

2nt relay. it's a narrow opening range in HCP terms and there are a limited number of possible shapes.

responder can just ask questions. no need to set hearts as trumps and conduct a real conversation.

I am not sure I understand. 2NT as a relay rather than a shape inquiry, is that what you are saying? I don't mean to haggle about words, I am not sure I am following.


With 2NT as the shape/strength inquiry, it perhaps starts
2D-2NT-3D
Usually this shows 4=5=3=1 shape, at least if we assume that Flannery is limited to 5/4 shapes. Let's say responder has a big hand. Might he not now want to bid rkc for whichever major he plans on playing in? I suppose we could use the two-suited six card version, but if responder has, say, one spade and four hearts to go with his diamond fit and good club suit, he is far more interested in the heart king (and queen) than in the spade king. Having 4C now be rkc for hearts now seems useful.

And it does seem like 2D-3D, as a slam try in the major to be named in a moment, could be useful. It is probably true that 2D-3D could be useful as a natural bid as well, Some sort of game try, else with diamonds only responder can just pass.

The problem I see is that none of these things will often arise. Any agreement needs to be pretty simple or it will be too much of a tax on the memory (I was just watching on vugraph as a pair played in a 4-1 fit due to a slip in understanding).

There is an infamous review of a paper in mathematics that begins "This paper fills a much needed gap in the literature" . Still, I find speculating about agreements interesting here.

[Zelandakh]

kenberg, on 2016-June-19, 15:34, said:

I am not sure I understand. 2NT as a relay rather than a shape inquiry, is that what you are saying? I don't mean to haggle about words, I am not sure I am following.

With 2NT as the shape/strength inquiry, it perhaps starts
2D-2NT-3D
Usually this shows 4=5=3=1 shape, at least if we assume that Flannery is limited to 5/4 shapes. Let's say responder has a big hand. Might he not now want to bid rkc for whichever major he plans on playing in?

If you are going the relay route, perhaps 2NT is GF and 3♥ over 3♦ might then be a further relay for controls. You might further define 4♦ as an "end signal" and use 4♠/4NT as RKCB for the major below. Whether going the full relay route is a good idea is another thing entirely. But if you are playing relays elsewhere in the system, transferring the rules to a Flannery sequence would be very simple to do.

[kenberg]

Zelandakh, on 2016-June-20, 05:40, said:

If you are going the relay route, perhaps 2NT is GF and 3♥ over 3♦ might then be a further relay for controls. You might further define 4♦ as an "end signal" and use 4♠/4NT as RKCB for the major below. Whether going the full relay route is a good idea is another thing entirely. But if you are playing relays elsewhere in the system, transferring the rules to a Flannery sequence would be very simple to do.

just to make sure about language: I think of Lebensohl auctins as relay. 2NT forces (with exceptions in extreme cases) a response of 3C. With what I think of as standard Flannery responses, the 2NT asks for information. The Robinson suggestion for 2D-3D I would call a relay, since opener is supposed to bid 3H and then responder clarifies whether hearts or spades are trump. The distinction between asking partner for additional description and telling partner to just bid 3C is a useful distinction, and I think of "relay" as the word for the latter but not the former. I am not positive I am right about this usage.

Now suppose 2D-2NT is played as a GF. Still it could be a request for information.
But on a large number of hands, partner opens 2D and I need more information before I am willing to say whether we will play in game or not, so there has to be some sort of inquiry available.
So the idea is to preserve a way to get more information on the large number of hands where this is needed before deciding on game, while still finding some way to explore for slam on the infrequent hands where this is called for after a Flannery opening.

[Zelandakh]

kenberg, on 2016-June-20, 06:23, said:

just to make sure about language: I think of Lebensohl auctins as relay.

Wank is using the terminology in which a relay is a bid that shows nothing particularly about the hand bidding but asks for information from partner, while a call forcing a particularly response from partner would be a puppet. A call in which a particular response is expected most of (but not all of) the time, such as in Puppet Stayman or Lebensohl is often called a marionette to distinguish it from a true puppet.

[kenberg]

Zelandakh, on 2016-June-20, 07:22, said:

Wank is using the terminology in which a relay is a bid that shows nothing particularly about the hand bidding but asks for information from partner, while a call forcing a particularly response from partner would be a puppet. A call in which a particular response is expected most of (but not all of) the time, such as in Puppet Stayman or Lebensohl is often called a marionette to distinguish it from a true puppet.

Ok. With that in mind then yes, 2NT as a relay, asking for the usual info of shape and, when 4=5=2=2, strength seems right.

So now here is one thing I was getting at. 2D-? where responder has, say, four hearts and strength for a possible slam. One could play 4C as rkc for hearts, or one could play 4C as setting hearts after which 4NT would be rkc. But often responder might want to hear a little more first, just as with a more prosaic hand he wants to hear more before committing to game. So I am thinking 2D-2NT-3whatever-4m is rkc for the corresponding major. Or maybe 4m sets the corresponding major as trump and then a subsequent call is rkc.

I am not claiming it would often arise, but it seems like it could be useful when it does come up. And using the 4m in the same way for the auctions 2D-4m when you don't first need distributional information, and 2D-2NT-3whatever-4m when you do want to first inquire, would seem to minimize stress on memory.

Back to language for a moment. I have often thought puppet Stayman, as now usually played, is a misnomer. Lebensohl, where partner bids 3C unless his hand is such that he does ot want to be dropped in 3C, seems like a puppet. That is, the player barely has to look at his cards before bidding 3C. Puppet Stayman asks for a variety of responses depending on holdings. This does not seem like my notion of puppetry. If so, then regular Stayman is a puppet bid as well.

In f2f conversation these things get cleared up quickly but online maybe not always.

There are quite a few agreements now that force, or almost force, a specific response: The 2-way nmf bid of 2C forcing 2D, a Lebensohl 2NT forcing 3C, a Kokish 2H forcing 2S after 2C-2D. These are a different sort of artificial call from either Stayman or puppet Stayman.

[Zelandakh]

kenberg, on 2016-June-20, 08:07, said:

I am not claiming it would often arise, but it seems like it could be useful when it does come up.

More than this, it matches to bidding theory that tends to suggest going slowly with good hands. The difference between a full relay approach would be that, presumably, after 2♦ - 2NT; 3♦, 3♥ now would probably set hearts as trumps using a natural approach, whereas it is probably a further relay using full relay.

kenberg, on 2016-June-20, 08:07, said:

Back to language for a moment. I have often thought puppet Stayman, as now usually played, is a misnomer. Lebensohl, where partner bids 3C unless his hand is such that he does ot want to be dropped in 3C, seems like a puppet.

Absolutely! Puppet Stayman does not have a puppet in it. Nor for that matter does Lebensohl after a double or reverse - these are examples of marionettes. Lebensohl after 1NT can be played either way as some allow Opener to bid something other than 3♣ with great clubs.

kenberg, on 2016-June-20, 08:07, said:

There are quite a few agreements now that force, or almost force, a specific response: The 2-way nmf bid of 2C forcing 2D, a Lebensohl 2NT forcing 3C, a Kokish 2H forcing 2S after 2C-2D. These are a different sort of artificial call from either Stayman or puppet Stayman.

2♣ forcing 2♦ is a puppet, if it only forces 2♦ on hands that would pass a natural non-forcing 2♦ rebid then it is a marionette.
Kokish 2♥ is similar. For Kokish 2♠ is not forced so it is a marionette; for most club players it is a puppet.
Stayman on the other hand is a form of relay bid. Puppet Stayman is interestingly a cross between a relay and a marionette but not, as mentioned above, a puppet.

Note that the confusion over the term relay mirrors the term takeout. If I make a takeout of hearts, it means that I am assumed to be holding short hearts. Yet when I takeout into ♥ it means I have a weak hand with long hearts. The same term with a completely different message. Relay is a little like that, particularly since the ACBL use the term in the GCC in a way that does not appear to match any common usage of the term at all. In any case, I am very confident that wank uses the same terminology as me, at least in this instance.