Flip flop for the minors

[Guest Jlall]

I've been trying to figure out why flip flop for the minors is so popular but I can't so maybe you guys can enlighten me. I understand that the upside is that opener is more likely to play the hand in 3N (it's more likely he has a 3N bid over a limit raise) with flip flop.

 

However, it seems like there are two much bigger issues than right siding the contract. First you are losing the whole point of preempting when you do it with 2N and give them an easy cuebid, a pass and then balance, a X and then balance, etc. The great thing about the 3D bid is that LHO with a mediumish hand has to guess whether to bid or pass, either could work badly on the wrong day, and flip flop negates that whole advantage. Also, how does one bid a GF hand with support playing flip flop? Clearly 3D cannot act as limit+ so that means you have to use some bid to show a GF raise, or start with a XX which lets them in easily, let's them preempt you, and doesn't show support. If you use 2N as limit+ then you are much better positioned on a GF hand.

 

Is rightsiding it every now and then when it's usually irrelevant anyways really worth it?

[mikeh]

I agree with you, entirely.

[helene_t]

Yes, agree with you. Old textbooks tend to overestimate the importance of right-siding.

 

I like one of the chapters in Points Schmoints:

Heading: "Who should declare? Who cares!"

Bergen states that it isn't a players age, gender, number of HCPs or number of masterpoints that should decide whether (s)he's going to declare or not. It's simply a matter of whether he happened to be the first to bid the denomination of the contract if both partners bid correctly according to their system.

[cherdano]

What is flip-flop?

[mikeh]

What is flip-flop?

flip flop is a means of raising a minor opening after an immediate takeout double.

 

A very popular treatment, over a major [x] is to use redouble as tending to deny a fit, a jump raise as weak and 2N as limit (or limit+, depending on style).

 

An almost equally popular treatment, in the minors, is to 'flip' the meanings of 2N and jump raise: the rationale being, as Justin noted, the desire to right -side 3N when responder has an invitational hand: get the stronger hand on play and the defender with the most cards on lead... and having to guess which suit to attack.. whereas the 4th seat player will more often hit the right lead, since he will lead his longest suit (or strongest if 2 or more equal).

 

Hence the name 'flip-flop' to designate the treatment of 1minor [x] 2N weak, 3minor limit.... and, as Justin observed, better than limit has to redouble and allow the opps an easy entry...amongst the other issues he identified.

[kenrexford]

For years I have played a completely different version of "flip-flop" that resolves one of the problems that Justin raised (the GF raise). The technique uses a jump raise as limit, with 2NT showing either GF or weak. With GF, you keep bidding, obviously.

 

This technique does allow for a cuebid by advancer after 2NT, which is clearly undesirable. However, it offers the benefit at least of immediately showing support with support, with the "GF or Weak" option being so disparate that it is usually easy to deal with when competition occurs.

[Guest Jlall]

For years I have played a completely different version of "flip-flop" that resolves one of the problems that Justin raised (the GF raise). The technique uses a jump raise as limit, with 2NT showing either GF or weak. With GF, you keep bidding, obviously.

Seems intelligent, and deals with that issue. I'd still rather maximize the preemptive effect though.

[cherdano]

For years I have played a completely different version of "flip-flop" that resolves one of the problems that Justin raised (the GF raise).  The technique uses a jump raise as limit, with 2NT showing either GF or weak.  With GF, you keep bidding, obviously.

Seems intelligent, and deals with that issue. I'd still rather maximize the preemptive effect though.

It gives up the right-siding benefits, though. :)

Some claim this 2-way 2N makes it dangerous for opponents to compete, but I doubt it. When you have values and want to bid, 2N will be weak most of the time, or quite shapely if GF.

[pclayton]

Agree with most of this (but not all).

 

I don't play flip-flop, and 3 minor remains preemptive. 2N is a limit raise with 4-5 trump, since we play transfers starting with redoubles.

 

If you are a pick up partnership, I do agree that flip-flop is a bad agreement. I'd just assume play regular Jordan.

 

Much of what you say is the same claim that my regular partner makes. Any time you introduce an artificial treatment that is a lower ranking denomination than the original artificial meaning, you allow the opponents to make lead directing doubles and other conventional calls that they wouldn't normally be able to make. even an innocuous transfer auction like:

 

1♥ - (dbl) - 2♦ - ?

 

where 2♦ is a 3 card constructive raise gives 4th seat a cheap cue bid.

 

However, in my experience, its a big deal to have the doubler on lead. "Right Siding" to me has nothing to do with the 'strong' hand declaring when one has 14 and the other has 11; rather it has everything to do with having the 13 point hand on lead with the option of having to lead away from tenaces, or having to go passive, instead of having the weak opponent lead through a good hand.

 

(There's a double edged sword to this. Say we reach a routine 3N. Sometimes the doubler will know what to lead, whereas putting the doubler's partner on lead becomes a 'blind' proposition. On the other hand, frequently the doubler will have two four card suits, and doesn't know their side's real source of tricks, and will be in the blind. I think these circumstances wash each other out).

 

Defense is easier when dummy puts down a 20 count and declarer has a 6 count, but this is a rare occurence.

 

In my experience, the biggest gains I have seen is when their strong hand is on lead, and our strong hand is on the table, and the lead comes around to our weaker hand.

[Stephen Tu]

I've always preferred what Mike Lawrence described in his Contested Auctions book -- use criss-cross (jump in other minor) as LR+, jump raise preempt, 2nt = natural w/ stoppers in majors. Right-siding + retain max preempt value. Best of all worlds(?), at just the cost of losing preempts in the other minor.

[ArcLight]

>Old textbooks tend to overestimate the importance of right-siding.

>I like one of the chapters in Points Schmoints:

>Heading: "Who should declare? Who cares!"

 

 

Mike Lawrence gives many examples of what he considers bad bids because they wrong side a contract. Or don't have stoppers in a suit the opps are likely to bid.

 

The examples seem to make sense, though maybe they are specific to just thos eexamples and can't be extrapolated.

 

What are some of the "old textbooks"? Are tehy from the 60's? Or maybe general advice given to newer players?

[inquiry]

I have never played normal flip-flop, but I have been experimenting with this treatment...

 

1m-(dbl)-3m is a normal preemptive raise, promising some values (think working 5 hcp to maybe 9). Five working HCP would be KQxxxx in the opened suit, for instance.

 

1m-(dbl)-2NT, a really weak preemptive raise OR game forcing raise

 

This allows you to right side the most likley 3NT contacts (when responder has working values) and serves as a serious warning not to try 3NT otherwise (the weak 2NT bid).

 

The one big disadvantage so far, is that advancer gets a free cue-bid in your minor suit at the three level, so this might not be a useful treatment. Of course, that is also true of normal flip-flop.

[mike777]

What is more important?

1) Having the strong hand play 3nt with the strong opp on lead or

2) Stop them from having an extra cuebid available?

3) Yea, you can still play criss cross is on over takeout x with game force hands. which means you give up the abilty to make a wjs in the other minor over x.

[keylime]

I used to play Flip-Flop when I was impressionable. I've grown to loathe it. There's very little to me that I see as being merit-based.

[mike777]

In any case it seems FlipFlop is a very minor priority in the scheme of things. Justin does this come up alot for you?

[Winstonm]

I've been trying to figure out why flip flop for the minors is so popular but I can't so maybe you guys can enlighten me.

 

Because they are easy to slip on, lightweight, durable, and never go out of fashion at the beach. And you can get a pair in almost any color, too, and when you are digging in that deep, dark mine its nice to know you are still color-coordinated.

 

What's that? Oh, he said minor, not miner.

 

Never mind.

[keylime]

And they are so trendy too - regardless of locale the venerable flip-flop earmarks panache and fashionable tastes to your peers...oops, I better quit reading the fashion mags again....

[Gerardo]

What's that? Oh, he said minor, not miner.

 

Never mind.

GREAT movie.

[mikestar]

I rather like Bill Root's treatment: Inverted raises (of whatever flavor you prefer) are on over a double. 2NT and 3NT are natural but based on support for partner's minor. Good balanced hands without support redouble. All you lose is 1m-(x)-2m on a crappy hand that is afraid to go to 3m.

[helene_t]

What are some of the "old textbooks"? Are tehy from the 60's? Or maybe general advice given to newer players?

Sorry, that was one of the usual blanket statements of mine.

 

I have a 1938 book (I think) of Culbertson that is quite extreme with respect to right-siding. Of course nobody teaches using that book anymore but some archaic ideas still live in coffeehouses. But more generally, now I think more about it, it may not be related to the age of the book. Hemskerk's "Acol Plus" and, as you mention, some of Lawrence's books, emphasize right-siding as well and they are not older than Bergen's books.

 

Thanx for the eye-opener, Arclight.

[MFA]

First you are losing the whole point of preempting when you do it with 2N and give them an easy cuebid, a pass and then balance, a X and then balance, etc.

 

Agree, but how do people exploit that lovely extra bidding room?

 

My partnership uses this strategy:

 

X = Take-out, could be rather light (lovely to be able to t/o double and still sell out to 3mi if that seems best).

 

X + X = Take-out again. Extra values obviously.

P + X = Penalty.

X + bid = Forcing.

Bid = Better than P + bid.

 

---

In general we always use X of an artficial bid/raise in competition as "take-out of what they have shown".

 

For instance: Namyats, Bergen raises, 1x - (1y) - pass - (2x) Dbl, etc.

Very useful to be able to take-out double without actually having to enter the bidding in dangerous situations. Much better than the usual lead direction treatments, we think.

 

Against Namyats, it works like this:

X of 4mi is a shape take-out of 4Ma - could be aggressive because of the safety.

X+X: Shape takeout with extras

P+X: Balanced take-out (~ strong notrump type).

I find this defense so strong that Namyats becomes almost unplayable.

[mycroft]

1m-X-2NT "preemptive or GF" vs. rightsiding - depends on how many times opener can go to 3NT opposite a preemptive hand. Which depends on your basic system and strength of the "strong bid", and the holes in your NT ladder that correspond to 1m, then xNT.

 

If responder has the GF case, the strength is (at 3NT) relatively equal, and there should be tenaces over the doubler, so the "leading through" aspect isn't as prominent, nor is the "hide the strong hand". And fourth hand's only entry is likely to be in the long suit, so if you can hold up...

 

I don't think it's that much of a loss. However, I think the whole concept of flip flop Dormer is memory work that would give greater returns in another part of my system.

 

Michael.

[junyi_zhu]

I've been trying to figure out why flip flop for the minors is so popular but I can't so maybe you guys can enlighten me. I understand that the upside is that opener is more likely to play the hand in 3N (it's more likely he has a 3N bid over a limit raise) with flip flop.

 

However, it seems like there are two much bigger issues than right siding the contract. First you are losing the whole point of preempting when you do it with 2N and give them an easy cuebid, a pass and then balance, a X and then balance, etc. The great thing about the 3D bid is that LHO with a mediumish hand has to guess whether to bid or pass, either could work badly on the wrong day, and flip flop negates that whole advantage. Also, how does one bid a GF hand with support playing flip flop? Clearly 3D cannot act as limit+ so that means you have to use some bid to show a GF raise, or start with a XX which lets them in easily, let's them preempt you, and doesn't show support. If you use 2N as limit+ then you are much better positioned on a GF hand.

 

Is rightsiding it every now and then when it's usually irrelevant anyways really worth it?

You can play a raising structure here:

1x double:

2x: simple raise(can be weak if you play those transfer bids)

2x+1: GF raise.

2x+2: invitational.

2x+3: some type of splinter or anything else you like to play.

3x-1: constructive raise with at least 9 trumps.

3x: preemptive.