My friend Greg and I are trying to build a strong partnership. We're studying a couple of different precision systems (don't ask me why it can't be just one; oh, if only things were that simple) and playing 2 over 1 while we work on mastering all these complex relay structures. We really should be playing a barebones 2/1 card while we get our ducks in a row, but why would we do that?
We've been having a tug of war lately over whether to play minorwood or kickback. Greg had never played minorwood and I'd never played kickback, though I do see its advantages. Finally, last Wednesday before our club game, Greg whined enough to get me to agree on kickback. You see where this is going, don't you?
On the final board of the afternoon, we had the following auction:
Greg Meg
1D - 1H
2C - 2S (artificial, game force)
3C - 3D
3N - 4H
PASS
We played in our 4-1 fit, down 2, where slam is cold in either minor. Whoopsie.
So the moral of the story is that if you're going to insist on playing a convention, you should probably remember it when it comes up.
Thanks, Greg, for being a good sport as I continue to laugh at you five days later, and for letting me post this on my website.
Monday, November 30, 2009
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3 comments:
Kanter recommends both minorwood, if agreement at 3 level or lower, and kickback, if agreement at 4 level. If either of you have bid the suit naturally, it is not available for kickback, so Kanter would bid 4S for kickback. It's very hard to learn since it comes up so seldom. Partnership bidding on BBO really helped me and partner. We used to miss it every time. Now haven't missed in 2 months, but it has only come up once.
You should be playing Rainbow Gerber. It solves all these kinds of problems. Of course Meg is about four years underage for that convention.
I have been thinking about proposing the addition of kickback to my existing agreements with one bridge partner. Being concerned about avoiding accidents -- but not having read enough about kickback to propose specific agreements about when it applies -- what I am proposing to partner is that if we are in an auction where 4NT would otherwise be keycard, then 4 of suit above agreed trumps becomes the keycard ask (that is, kickback) and 4NT takes the place of what becomes the kickback call (presumptively, a control bid in the suit used for the kickback call).
Applying my proposed agreements to the auction of you and your partner: 4NT would not otherwise have been keycard -- instead, I am assuming, it would have been invitational and naturalish -- and so I would think that 4H is not kickback. Rather, I would think that 4H would be a control bid with continued interest in a diamond slam. Since the precondition for applying kickback does not exist, I would think that 4D is either minorwood or just soliciting control bids for consideration of diamond slam, whichever the partnership agrees.
Does my proposed agreement with partner about when kickback applies make sense to you? As I stated, I haven't seen anything written on the topic and so am just searching for some rules to avoid misunderstandings.
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