[flametree]

32519, on 2012-January-06, 23:56, said:

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I have seen enough disasters such as this one to realise that Kickback is an important toy to have in your partnership agreement. You can place the blame on either partner for bidding mishaps such as these. In the end it matters not who takes the blame. The auction ended in 6 off to Aces. If the ♠ fit was shown the auction could still have ended in 5♠.

My personal opinion is that BI should learn both Kickback and ECKB over Hearts (bidding judgement/discipline will also be helpful). Eventually they will move on to Advanced.

1♥ = Natural
2♣ = 2/1 Game Force
3♥ = Extra length/strength
4NT = RKCB
5♠ = 2 keycards plus the trump queen
6♥ = Disaster! 2 keycards missing

My first thought about this hand is that if you're going to bid this badly, it seems almost unfair that you might have a convention in place to allow you to be rescued! (My second thought was that they probably got a black suit lead, made 12 tricks and went away thinking they'd done great...)

I play a lot with "I"s from the B/I range and many of them can't even get their heads around when it is right to use Blackwood or if I'm lucky, RKCB. (I may know that north in the example above, for instance!) So I'd be very reluctant to give them problems like when a 4S bid may or may not be ace-asking for hearts vs natural vs some other meaning.

[Mbodell]

Zelandakh, on 2012-January-04, 08:47, said:

What have either of these sequences got to do with Kickback though?

In both cases 1/2 of the partnership thought it was kickback. The second one was the funniest because the 2♣ opener thought the 3♦ bid set trump since it was a raise of the 2♦ waiting. And of course the auction continued 4♠ over 4♥ which was meant as kickback for hearts but read as the answer to kickback for diamonds and bidding continued to a confused 5nt (which was the last making spot, so no kickback disaster?).

[blackshoe]

How about

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5C=1 or 4 key cards

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Another reason for using 4♠ as kickback-RKC for ♥ is being able to use 5♠ as specific K-ask .
Partner can reply 5NT with the ♠ K ( well below 6♥ ). You can't do that if 4NT were RKC .

[mycroft]

I have to admit that while Kickback is a very nice, and occasionally useful (over having 4NT, I mean, not in general) convention, the ancillary things that have to be worked out and the cost of a mixup make me agree with clee - it's not for BI (it's not for me, either; I can't believe that it will gain me anything enough times that the -13/screwup will pay me back, unless I played much more often than I do!)

But I'm biased. If you want to play it, go ahead, and get it right. And when you don't get it right, do it at my table, please?

As far as EKB goes, it's got the same problems, but with a *much lower* likelihood of being misunderstood (albeit, a higher likelihood of being bid at the wrong time, leading to "oops, that response took us past safety). So, not so bad.

Having said all of that, BI as a rule love their ace-asking bids, and overuse them - and I believe their game would, in general, be improved by a 3-month ban on any ace-asking conventions. So I might not be the best person to ask about this :-)

[mike777]

one of the side benefits of kickback is you get to bid 4nt quant often in forum hard to bid hands.