Kickback

[fromageGB]

I take it the GB in your name doesn't tell us where "round here" is, then? A jump shift as opener's rebid, as in 1♥ - 1♠; 3♣, is regarded as 100% forcing to game in any description of Acol I have ever read.

Well, thanks for that. England actually. I've been playing Acol with a variety of partners for maybe 30 years before I changed to 2 over 1, and I had not come across it as being GF. Forcing, certainly, but not GF. Maybe styles have changed over the years, but we always played this as forcing, not promising a rebid if partner made a simple preference or own suit rebid.

 

But I don't profess to be an acol expert.

[MrAce]

Very good topic. Especially for those of us, who don't use "kickback" and planning to gather info about it before we consider. Reading Han's, Ken's and Gnasher's warnings about it and combining it with my own experience when not using it, i think i will skip it unless i am willing to spend long hours to establish firm agreements about it.

 

And yes in Europe there are pairs who plays kickback, but it is not more popular than American Football in europe imo.

[mike777]

I must say I love kickback. As a nonexpert it took me awhile to understand it and I had plenty of errors/mistakes along the way.

 

After watching the Vandy, keep in mind that you really should not use kickback when you hve a void, try to get pard to bid kickback and if you show(except whenresponding to a Q ask) or ask for kings, you confirm all key cards. :)

 

---

 

 

I think for most of us a jump shift is 100% gf in 2/1 but perhaps not in europe. I wont be doing this on 16. :)

 

 

1d or 1h=1s

3c=gf

[MrAce]

I must say I love kickback. As a nonexpert it took me awhile to understand it and I had plenty of errors/mistakes along the way.

 

After watching the Vandy, keep in mind that you really should not use kickback when you hve a void, try to get pard to bid kickback and if you show(except whenresponding to a Q ask) or ask for kings, you confirm all key cards. :)

 

---

 

 

I think for most of us a jump shift is 100% gf in 2/1 but perhaps not in europe. I wont be doing this on 16. :)

 

 

1d or 1h=1s

3c=gf

 

Jump shift by opener is of course gf in europe, unless responder did not have his first bid and thinks he improved the contract already, can pass. But thats the same for American players (at least thats what top players mentioned in a topic i read i don't remember where) Also if playing Gazilli or similar convention, jump shift by opener only shows 5-5 intermediate hands, and nf. (Where all forcing hands start via 2♣)

[gnasher]

There are about fifty countries in Europe, about the same number of different languages, and at least ten major bidding systems. Have Bluecalm and MrAce visited all of these countries to study the popularity of different ace-asking conventions?

[Finch]

There are about fifty countries in Europe, about the same number of different languages, and at least ten major bidding systems. Have Bluecalm and MrAce visited all of these countries to study the popularity of different ace-asking conventions.

 

It's quite difficult to define a 'language' precisely, but a quick bit of googling suggests there are at least 100 languages, probably more. Admittedly there are probably some spoken languages which are not known by any bridge players, which cuts it down a bit.

[fromageGB]

Off topic, but thanks for the info on opener's jump shift. I checked the EBU guide to acol, and yes, jump shift = 19+, and a reverse is 16+. I always thought them the same ; next time I form a scratch pair I will be a better partner :)

 

On topic : if anyone is thinking of trying kickback, don't be discouraged. Even though it might not happen often, it is nice being able to stop at the 5 level in any suit.

[gnasher]

It's quite difficult to define a 'language' precisely, but a quick bit of googling suggests there are at least 100 languages, probably more. Admittedly there are probably some spoken languages which are not known by any bridge players, which cuts it down a bit.

I should have said that there are about 50 languages that are the official language of at least one European country.

[jmcw]

Partner send this on resolving ambiguity, I do not know the original author.

 

This mostly kept us on the same page.

 

When two adjacent suits are being bid, and a trump suit has not yet been agreed, ambiguity may exist as to whether four of the higher-ranking suit is kickback.

 

PARAMOUNT RULE: When trump can be set to remove ambiguity, set it. This will almost always be the case.

 

You will almost always be able to set one of the two suits as trump below the four level. When you can do that, and don't, then assume that the intent is that the other suit is trump.

 

1h 2c

2d ?

 

If you want diamonds to be trump, bid 3d. If you want hearts to be trump, bid 2h or 3h. Don't leap to to show a weak hand wanting to play in hearts. First, it's bad bridge, because opener's hand is unlimited. Second, it's an ambiguous bid (kickback for diamonds?). There is no need for the ambiguity.

 

1s 2c

2h 4s

 

Why put pressure on partner? Bid 3h or 3s.

 

1s 2d

2s 4s <--- no ambiguity, so ok to jump.

 

Responder can bid kickback for their suit on their next bid:

 

1s 2h

2s 4s <--- kickback for hearts. Bid 3s to resolve ambiguity.

 

1d 4h <--- not kickback, because we can set diamonds as trump

with a forcing bid (inverted minor or some other

bid, depending on system), then bid kickback.

 

1h 4s <--- not kickback. We can make a forcing bid to set hearts

as trump (Jacoby 2nt, splinter bid, 2/1 then support

hearts).

 

1h 2c

2d 4d <--- kickback for clubs. 3d would set diamonds as trump.

 

Note this auction:

 

1h 2d

3d 3h <--- 3h sets hearts as trump. Any other bid, and diamonds

is permanently set as trump.

 

1h 2d

3d 4h <--- kickback for diamonds. Diamonds is agreed, 3h was

not bid to reset trump to hearts.

 

1d 1s

2nt 3c <--- New Minor Forcing

3h 4s <--- kickback. No way to set hearts as trump below 4h.

If you want spades to be trump, make life easy by

for partner by bidding 3s. Not doing so makes it

clear that you want 4s to be kickback.

 

1d 1h

4h <-------- this is a common auction. Use judgment and don't

assume it's kickback for diamonds.

 

 

Two Strikes And You're Out Rule:

 

If a player has had two opportunities to support a suit and has not done so, then their subsequent bid is not kickback.

 

1h 1s

2h 3d

4d 4h <--- kickback for diamonds. Diamonds is the agreed trump

suit. Plus, responder didn't support hearts earlier,

although responder had two chances to do so.

Resolve it in the favor of kickback.

(actual hand from club play)

 

1s 2h

3d 3h

4d 4h

4s <-------- Not kickback for hearts. Opener had two chances to

support hearts and didn't, instead choosing to rebid

their minor. Too late now!

(actual hand from club play)

 

When opener rebids two of their suit, and responder wants to force game and show six of their suit, they must bid a new suit and then rebid their first suit. This shows a six-card suit and a game force.

 

1d 1h

2d 3h <--- invitational. Can be passed.

 

1d 1h

2d 2s

2nt 3h <--- game force, 6+ hearts

 

1d 2h

2d 4h <--- kickback for diamonds

 

 

When opener jump rebids their suit, any bid other than pass by responder is a game force.

 

1d 1h

3d 3h <--- game force. Bid 4h next bid if you want to play there.

 

1d 1h

3d 4h <--- kickback for diamonds

 

Use the fourth suit forcing convention to make it clear that you want your suit to be trump. Since FSF is forcing to game, opener should not make a jump to show game-going strength. Preserve the bidding space.

 

 

1d 1h

2c 2s!

2nt 3d <--- sets diamonds as trump, shows slam interest

 

1d 1h

2c 4d <--- kickback for clubs

 

Following is a library of auctions where kickback ambiguities arose. This section will be added to as new auctions are encountered.

 

1h 2d

2h 3d

4h <-------- kickback for diamonds. No opportunity to set diamonds

as trump below the four level, so the general rule is

that 4h is kickback. Plus, opener could have bid 3h

to remove all ambiguity about what 4h would mean.

(actual hand from club play)

[bluecalm]

Ok, I didn't express myself well.

What I wanted to say about kickback in Europe is this: top European players don't play it.

I have no doubt someone somewhere plays it. Lauria - Versace, Fantoni Nunes, Duboin - Sementa, Helgemo - Helness, Balicki Zmudzinski and I think top Netherland and French pairs (not sure about it) don't play it.

In fact Fantoni Nunes don't even play blackwood and they are outbidding almost everybody in the world. Spending time and memory on pages of notes where something is and isn't kickback which takes away calls which are useful for cuebids and splinters is exercise in futility in my opinion.

 

1d 1h

3d 3h <--- game force. Bid 4h next bid if you want to play there.

 

1d 1h

3d 4h <--- kickback for diamonds

 

Really ?

If partner bids 4♣ in first sequence and you bid 4♥ how is he supposed to know if you wanted to play there in the first place or if you just lack ♠ cuebid ?

 

1s 2h

2s 4s <--- kickback for hearts. Bid 3s to resolve ambiguity.

 

Lol !

 

1d 1h

2c 4d <--- kickback for clubs

 

You really think that ace asking bid is more useful here than for example splinter ?

[gnasher]

Thanks jmcw - that's helped to clarify my views on Kickback.

 

What I wanted to say about kickback in Europe is this: top European players don't play it.

That's certainly true. I just tried to find a top European pair that plays it, and didn't find one.

 

Spending time and memory on pages of notes where something is and isn't kickback which takes away calls which are useful for cuebids and splinters is exercise in futility in my opinion.

Me too.

[Zelandakh]

I this really so complicated? If playing 4NT as RKCB and the bid of the Kickback suit would have been natural, then it is still natural playing Kickback. If it would have been a cue bid but 4NT would not have been RKCB then the meanings are unchanged. If it would have been a cue bid and 4NT would have been RKCB then the meanings are switched playing Kickback. In this particular example it is clear that 4H cannot be natural since hearts could have been supported naturally earlier, so in normal methods 4H would be a cue and 4NT RKCB; hence playing Kickback the meanings are reversed and 4H is RKCB for diamonds.

[MrAce]

There are about fifty countries in Europe, about the same number of different languages, and at least ten major bidding systems. Have Bluecalm and MrAce visited all of these countries to study the popularity of different ace-asking conventions?

 

Kickback or jump shift usage in europe are related to the number of languages and countries as much as i am related to Angelina Jolie.

 

Anyway, the conventions cards of all european teams or pairs that has played in EC and BB or Worldchamps can be found on the net i think ;) (Also u can find cc of pairs from their national bridge websites and see for yourself how many pairs play kickback) You don't need to know how many languages they speak, or how many bird kinds live in europe to speak about a jump shift or ace asking in bridge. They all have to fill their cc in English at the end of the day.

[JLOGIC]

A large part of the top american pairs play kickback (off the top of my head Meckwell, Levin/Weinstein, Greco/Hampson, Grue/Cheek, Passell/Wold/Jacobus, Wooldridge/Hurd). Surprised no top Europeans play it. I think it is hugely beneficial for slam bidding if you are a serious partnership and worth the large time commitment to get down properly.

[kenberg]

I am starting to sort this through.

 

Han and Zelandakh, and others, stress that first it has to be decided if 4♥ could be natural. Han (and Frances) appear to see this as less cut and dried. Justin speaks of "the large time commitment to get it down properly" which I take to be a thought along the same lines.

 

Here are two auctions:

 

I (the one I had):

1♦ Pass 1♥ 1♠

2♣ Pass 2♠ Pass

3♦ Pass 4♦ Pass

and

II the uncontested variant

1♦ Pass 1♥ Pass

2♣ Pass 2♠ Pass

3♦ Pass 4♦ Pass

 

I think there is an important difference.

 

In I, opener had a clear opportunity to show three card heart support over the 1♠ intervention. Having not done so, he could bid 3♥ over the 2♠ bid to show his doubleton. Whether he would always do this when he holds two hearts and six diamonds is not so clear to me. With, say, Kx I imagine he would. With xx and strong diamonds, maybe he would go with 3♦.

 

In II, over 2♠, it seems less clear to me that opener would be comfortable bidding 3♥ on a doubleton. It's true that he might feel that if he had 1=3=5=4 shape he would have raised hearts immediately, so with 1=2=6=4 shape he is free to bid 3♥ now expecting it to be understood. But I don't usually think that deeply during an auction. At any rate, in auction II, it seems to me that at the time of the four diamond bid it is still possible for there to be a playable 5-2 fit in hearts and, in some hands, we might want to play it there. It's not that hard to construct such hands.

 

Anyway, I have come to agree that the problem is not kickback itself but rather the fact that reasonable minds might disagree on whether a 4♥ bid could be an offer to play in 4♥. I now think that thanks to the non-support double and the later 3♦ rather than 3♥ bid, 4♥ is not likely an offer to play. In auction II this is less clear to me.

 

Watching Vugraph it is not totally rare to see even the top pairs experience confusion over whether trump has been set and if so, what it has been set as. More complex auctions than I am presenting, yes, but then I don't play at their level. As Han rightly notes, I don't have such extensive discussions with partners.

 

 

Fwiw, I give you a hand from the other day:

[hv=pc=n&s=s96haqda9732cak94&n=saqj87ht52dkq6cq3]133|200[/hv]

 

1♠ 2♦

3♦

 

Uh huh. As it turns out, N has great cards and, further, everything is lying right and you can make 7♦ (or 7NT for that matter) if you choose the working line (major kings both on the left, spade length on the left). But looking only at the S cards, it is not so clear to me after the diamond raise that the only issue is key cards. So even if 4♥ were kickback (it would not have been) it is not so clear to me that it is the right call.

 

All in all, I am thinking more positively of kickback, but Justin's "the large time commitment to get it down properly" still gives me pause.

[gnasher]

Kickback or jump shift usage in europe are related to the number of languages and countries as much as i am related to Angelina Jolie.

You seem to think that propensity to play Kickback is a function of which continent you come from. Why do you say that it is independent of which country you come from? And how do you know?

 

Anyway, the conventions cards of all european teams or pairs that has played in EC and BB or Worldchamps can be found on the net i think http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/public/style_emoticons/default/wink.gif (Also u can find cc of pairs from their national bridge websites and see for yourself how many pairs play kickback) You don't need to know how many languages they speak, or how many bird kinds live in europe to speak about a jump shift or ace asking in bridge. They all have to fill their cc in English at the end of the day.

If you'd said "Very few top European pairs play Kickback", or "Very few Europeans who have played for their country play Kickback", I wouldn't have argued. But you didn't: you said "And yes in Europe there are pairs who plays kickback, but it is not more popular than American Football in europe imo."

 

I don't see why you think you can extrapolate from what the top players play to what the masses play. Nor do I see why you think that Europe is sufficiently homogeneous to make such a generalisation.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

I didn't mention it in this thread ( but in other similar threads ) that:

"In a GF situation and a minor ( m ) is agreed -- outright or implied -- the first partner to bid 4m, then that should be RKC ( Minorwood ) . " Forget the kickback except in very special ( pre-agreed ) auctions ( eg relay situations, etc ).

 

For this one ( post 40 ) :

 

1S - 2D! ( 2/1 GF )

3D - 3H ( either a cue or NT probe )

3S - 4D! ( RKC )

5C ( 2 + dQ) - 5H ( kickback for specific K's using Minorwood )

6D ( none ) - pass

[Zelandakh]

That is essentially the recommended method Don, but not the only one. In particular slam try auctions need some discussion. With diamonds as trumps then using 4C as Last Train is an option but then you are already adding a second new convention just to play the first. And when clubs are trumps then there is no equivalent - therefore you need to have the exception that making a no trump probe followed by 4m is no longer RKCB but now merely a slam try. It is all a bit messy for non-expert partnerships.

 

An alternative is to play that 4m in these auctions is always a slam try. Partner responds with the next step to decline the slam try (whereupon the next step again is RKCB) or with control-showing responses 4m+2, +3, +4, +5 to accept the slam try. Kickback is in operation only if the bid cannot reasonably be natural. This method loses 1 or 2 steps over Minorwood but is much simpler since you need no rule exceptions and slam tries are taken care of making judgement for non-experts easier.

 

I suspect Minorwood is the better convention for regular expert partnerships and the second version is better for casual partnerships not afraid of new conventions but unwilling to put alot of time into discussing the subtleties.

[Finch]

Not that I'm (half of) a top European pair, but I do play Kickback in some auctions, and it's not actually mentioned on the main pages of my WBF convention cards (or on the EBU card).

[MrAce]

 

If you'd said "Very few top European pairs play Kickback", or "Very few Europeans who have played for their country play Kickback", I wouldn't have argued. But you didn't: you said "And yes in Europe there are pairs who plays kickback, but it is not more popular than American Football in europe imo."

 

I don't see why you think you can extrapolate from what the top players play to what the masses play. Nor do I see why you think that Europe is sufficiently homogeneous to make such a generalisation.

 

I dunno why u made a huge deal about it, but it was funny, and the more u talk about it the more i am amused. Because u took 1 sentence from the end of my post, which has nothing to much with the topic itself and was stating that it is not popular in Europe by making a similarity to American Football. Jesus, i am asked if i know how many countries live in Europe, how many languages they speak, and if i have a PHD degree about people's ace asking methods in Europe. LOL

 

Okay, u are not satisfied with the cc's. Kick back is a convention which is used much more by better players. So i assumed it would be the same in europe. It's home town is USA and it is not popular at all among Flight B and C players. It is played mostly among flight A players.(And no i didnt make a scientific study about this either, this is my personal observation)

 

The more i am amused because the subject itself (kickback, an ace asking method) has very limited variations. That makes it easier to make statements about it's usage. The Bridge Community arround the world and in Europe is STILL a very small community, regardless of how you try to make it look like a big community by requiring the knowledge of existing countries or languages or bird kinds etc etc. Just the members from Turkey in BBO for example, are close to the total users from Europe. Well, u may say that not everyone has to play in BBO, not everyone has to be competing in their own national league, and if that's the case, if there are SECRET people SECRETLY playing it and it is POPULAR among this SECRET society, then i take my word back :)

 

EDIT: And it has nothing to do with "kickback" being a bad or good convention. It is vulnerable for misunderstandings if not discussed very well in a pdship. And guess which pdships discuss more? This also might be the reason why it is more popular among better players or pdships.

[kenberg]

The responses to this thread have far exceeded my expectations, it has really been of interest. As to the do they or don't they European issue, I am sure it can be settled over drinks. I'll even buy the first round.

 

Thanks for all of the input,

Ken

[gnasher]

I dunno why u made a huge deal about it

I made a 38-word post saying that it was incorrect to treat Europe as being homogeneous in the same way that North America is. So far that's generated 592 words in replies from you. Which of us is making a big deal of it?

[blackshoe]

North America (Canada, the United States, Mexico) is homogeneous?

[gnasher]

North America (Canada, the United States, Mexico) is homogeneous?

 

I meant homogeneous compared to Europe, and I should probably have excluded Mexico. And I was only talking about bidding methods. I'm not suggesting that you all talk the same.

[jillybean]

The responses to this thread have far exceeded my expectations, it has really been of interest. As to the do they or don't they European issue, I am sure it can be settled over drinks. I'll even buy the first round.

 

Thanks for all of the input,

Ken

 

So, is kickback on your card now?