sfi

It's a Brown Sticker convention and subject to restrictions on when pairs can play it. I don't see anything in the WBF system regulations that outlaws it though, unless they are arguing the requirement that "a viable suggested defence to any Brown Sticker convention must be filed" is impossible to meet. It would be allowed in most events in Australia, for example.

As you say, 1 keycard is more likely than 0 so you are more likely to be able to ask about the trump queen in auctions when you care about it. But this is only true when the suit is hearts, so the gains are real but kind of small. I normally do whatever partner wants and don't worry too much about it - there are areas of the system I care more about. If I can't introduce Kickback I'd prefer partner plays something they're comfortable with.

We only play Multi as weak in either major. If I'm playing 2/1, 2NT shows something like 20-21 balanced, with 18-19 opening 1 of a suit and rebidding 2NT. Stronger hands start with 2C. We've found the preemptive value of a multi with no strong options far outweighs the precision we gained from more strong balanced ranges. For example, if you hold Axxx KQxx x xxxx And partner opens 2D multi. If you have no strong ranges, you can simply bid 4H (pass or correct) or use similar agreements if you have them. If responder has to worry about a strong balanced range, then you can't do that without worrying about finding the right fit or whether you have a slam. And if partner has one of the weak hands, it will be easier for your LHO to enter the auction since you can't jump straight to the 4-level.

Thanks. I do my best to avoid any strong options when partner wants to play multi. It’s nice to be able to pass 2D or to jump around without stuffing up partner’s plan.

I’ve been playing something similar, but with an 8-11 range. I wouldn’t open 2S playing it, but 10-13 looks ok for this hand.

I'm not sure specifically what you mean by 'Multi 2 way', but it looks a lot more like a 1S opening than a preempt to me.

When playing a multi-way 2C bid, I've always had an exception on this auction that allows the player to rebid 4C as natural. So I'd have to choose 4H or 4D (as last train) on this hand, and with working cards the bid would be 4D here. But yeah - 3H can't be right on the North hand.

This came up in a four-board robot challenge: [hv=pc=n&s=sak72ht76dcakqt92&d=w&v=b&b=4&a=p1h4d]133|200[/hv] My robot counterpart bid 4♥. I had a different issue: [hv=d=w&v=b&b=4&a=p1h4d4np5c(0%2F3)p5d(Trump%20Q%3F)dr(Diamond%20Ace)p]133|100[/hv] How do I force the robot to answer the question? They had already told me about the ♦A.

It's rare, but helps to limit other major hands. Given who I was playing with, the responses were more complex: 4♣ = slam interest but fewer than 3 aces, so 2 aces and at least one other useful card. 4♦ = where is your card? 4M = needs two useful cards 4♦ = 0-1 ace or 2 aces and nothing extra 4♥ = 3 aces

I really dislike 5-card overcalls at the two-level, but I'll still do it on this hand. We're too likely to lose a heart fit if I start with double.

If you do that you're more likely to miss game in your suit. When 2D shows the weak option, responder needs a real hand and is more likely to be able to look for game over interference.

This is trendy amongst the top players in Australia at the moment. I liked it better once I started thinking of 2M as an aggressive opening bid rather than a preempt - it meant I could better assess what to do as responder, and it impacts the range for auctions like 1M - 1x; 2M. It's basically the same as your fourth option but with shifted ranges. I am still lukewarm on the entire concept though. It feels more valuable to use 2M to show some sort of two-suited hand if you have 2D as multi. At the moment, I'm playing 2M as 8-11 with exactly 5 cards in the major. I've only had two days experience with this, but it has come up 3 times and we've done ok thus far.

If you reopen on this hand, mostly you find out they were about to miss 4H.

They stop dealing you 5-card majors if you refuse to overcall with them. Your partner should realise that as well.

As director you have the right to tell them to explain their bid more accurately, and to discuss how best to do so with them. I think you also have the obligation to do so.

As would we, but we don't really feel like we need to define 5C as anything artificial so natural it remains. I can't imagine using it though. And partner can be much better than 17 - 1H includes any hand that doesn't actually want to game force over whatever looks like a 1D response.

Given that we play kickback, 4NT is exclusion on hearts. The sequence you provide would just be natural and to play for us, but I can also see arguments for it being exclusion with hearts being trump - I'd want good agreements before trying it out.

I can see one strange thing in the set - you had the same auction on boards 161 and 171 (1D - 2D), but the explanations were different. Maybe it was discussed at the table? It does look like your opponent confused better play with cheating though.

The only time 1430 saves you in a cramped auction (which is often true for exclusion) is when you are worried about 1 key card and can already rule out the possibility of zero. In my experience that's rarer than the question of 0 vs 1, hence my view that 03/14 is better here. I haven't read Kantar's book, but my understanding is that the switch to 14/30 gains primarily when you now get to ask for the trump queen - the idea is that one key card is more likely than zero in many cooperative auctions. There are two different problems to be solved, so it's worth not conflating them. As I mentioned, we solved the second by switching to kickback (and enough practice to not stuff it up), which means we could solve the first one by changing the responses to key card enquiries. LBengtsson mentioned Turbo, which worked well enough the one time I played it. My concern was that it only shows an even or odd number of key cards. A difference of two could lead to confusion more easily than RKC, which only combines responses where there is a difference of three. Maybe it never causes issues in practice, but I haven't had enough experience with it. We did discuss switching to it in the current partnership but decided it didn't offer us enough at the time.

This is certainly an oft quoted maxim, but I've come around to the idea that it's no longer correct. There are enough tools to investigate slam that keep the auction low that, by the time you get to your keycard ask I find it generally is the most important question. So much so that my regular partner and I often wind up in an auction where we can maneuver partner into asking for keycards if they have anything extra. We'll now ask even with an unsuitable hand because we know that partner has set up the auction in this way. The only time we regularly don't ask for keycards is if the answer genuinely won't help us (i.e. weak trumps or a void). So many of our auctions go this way that I think we should be using side suits past our kickback key card ask to inquire about control in that suit. At the moment they are mostly wasted bids for us. Many slam bidding tools have gained popularity in the past couple of decades (improved Jacoby responses, non-serious 3nt, last train, XYZ, Gazzilli and so on) and IMO it has changed the utility of key card asks. I do have strong feelings about the responses. If you play kickback it doesn't matter, but it should be consistent with your exclusion responses unless you really want to do your head in. And there 0314 can be quite important. So we've gone to that throughout the system.

Playing XYZ, I would expect the auction to go: 1C - 1D 1H - 3D (slam interest, setting suit) 3H (cue) - 5C (exclusion KC ask) 5H (1) - 6D Similar to Cyberyeti's. You can certainly construct hands where we miss a better 6S or 6NT spot, or even reach a bad slam. But I play almost exclusively IMPs so 6D would work for us.

Most of my partnerships would start 1S - 3D (invitational), and North might just make an inspired pass.

There aren't enough small cards for this to work. LHO has to start playing honours on round two of the suit.

It allows you to distinguish between the 4/4 hands and the hands with four spades and longer hearts. The most common agreement I've seen is that if you are playing some sort of checkback, you can define the auction 1m - 1H 1NT - 2S as 4/4 invitational. Both the stronger 4/4 hands and all hands with longer hearts bid something else over 1NT.

2NT both minors? Always a good choice on your 2084 hands.