[dickiegera]

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Playing kickback is 4♠ asking for keycards for Hearts?

If it is what would 4NT be?

Thank You

[wank]

dickiegera, on 2013-June-21, 21:27, said:

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Playing kickback is 4♠ asking for keycards for Hearts?

If it is what would 4NT be?

Thank You

1) yes

2) a spade cuebid

3) why do people play a convention with so little value when they can't decide when it applies?

[Free]

♥ are agreed here, clearly, so 4♠ is kickback. With ♠ support, responder should've set ♠s instead of repeating ♥.

4NT can be several things, depending on how you play 5m: exclusion RKC with void ♠, ♠ cuebid,...

Agree with wank that if one of you doesn't realize this is a clear kickback situation, you better don't play kickback at all.

[32519]

I have a completely different question on "kickback." Both Minorwood and Redwood are frowned upon by many, yet both save bidding space. So I want to extend (simplify?) the term "kickback" (Redwood) to all 4-suits as follows -
1. With ♣ as the agreed trump suit, 4♦ becomes "kickback" for ♣ (currently known as Redwood).
2. With ♦ as the agreed trump suit, 4♥ becomes "kickback" for ♦ (currently known as Redwood).
3. With ♥ as the agreed trump suit, 4♠ becomes "kickback" for ♥ (as it is currently known).
4. With ♠ as the agreed trump suit, 4NT becomes "kickback" for ♠ (currently known as Blackwood for whichever version of Blackwood you use).

This doesn't really change anything currently in use. Instead it is to create a unified term for keycard asking sequences for all 4-suit.

Any takers?

[PhilKing]

32519, on 2013-June-22, 02:55, said:

Any takers?

That's what Kickback already is. Redwood is a subset of Kickback.

[blackshoe]

32519, on 2013-June-22, 02:55, said:

Any takers?

Phil is right, you have described kickback as originally defined by Jeff Rubens in a series of articles called "The Useful Space Principle" which is available as a booklet from The Bridge World. It's well worth the read.

[Free]

32519, on 2013-June-22, 02:55, said:

I have a completely different question on "kickback." Both Minorwood and Redwood are frowned upon by many, yet both save bidding space. So I want to extend (simplify?) the term "kickback" (Redwood) to all 4-suits as follows -
1. With ♣ as the agreed trump suit, 4♦ becomes "kickback" for ♣ (currently known as Redwood).
2. With ♦ as the agreed trump suit, 4♥ becomes "kickback" for ♦ (currently known as Redwood).
3. With ♥ as the agreed trump suit, 4♠ becomes "kickback" for ♥ (as it is currently known).
4. With ♠ as the agreed trump suit, 4NT becomes "kickback" for ♠ (currently known as Blackwood for whichever version of Blackwood you use).

This doesn't really change anything currently in use. Instead it is to create a unified term for keycard asking sequences for all 4-suit.

Any takers?

Basically this is the definition of 'kickback': 4X+1 is the 'kickback suit'. Whether you use it for kickback RKC or kickback Turbo (or something else), doesn't matter, it's always the same suit.

And with NT set as trump suit, 4♣ is Kickback Gerber.

[Zelandakh]

Dickie, let me throw this back at you. If you were not playing Kickback, what would 4♠ and 4NT be here? My guess is that your answer would be that 4♠ is a cue bid and 4NT is RKCB. Kickback simply reverses these two.

And @32519, Kickback does not per se save bidding space so much as redistribute it. It makes sense to do this whenever both the first step and the one you are switching it with are forcing and the new first step is more useful/common than the old first step. It can sometimes make sense to do it in other situations too and it is for those that partnerships develop more complex rules for when Kickback should apply.

[fromageGB]

wank, on 2013-June-21, 21:38, said:

3) why do people play a convention with so little value when they can't decide when it applies?

Cut the snide comments; I am sure that the vast majority of users have agreements that tells when it applies. And if someone is considering playing something new to them, then I would encourage them to ask questions when they are not sure.

Free, on 2013-June-22, 10:58, said:

And with NT set as trump suit, 4♣ is Kickback Gerber.

Not commonly realised, this is very true. Kickback was invented before Rubens; he just extended the idea.

[wank]

fromageGB, on 2013-June-27, 10:17, said:

Cut the snide comments; I am sure that the vast majority of users have agreements that tells when it applies. And if someone is considering playing something new to them, then I would encourage them to ask questions when they are not sure.

and i'm sure that relative to its usefulness it generates more threads asking for clarification of when it applies than any other convention.

[Cyberyeti]

wank, on 2013-June-27, 11:29, said:

and i'm sure that relative to its usefulness it generates more threads asking for clarification of when it applies than any other convention.

It's exceptionally useful played correctly, knowing that you can handle all possible responses to your ace ask because you're several bids lower is a great help, and simplifies quite a few auctions. Admittedly minorwood will accomplish the same thing for the minors although I prefer to have 4 of my minor available naturally to 4 of the suit above it, but even if I didn't play KB, I'd try to agree that 4♠ was the ace ask in hearts always, it has just been so useful over the years.

[blackshoe]

fromageGB, on 2013-June-27, 10:17, said:

Cut the snide comments; I am sure that the vast majority of users have agreements that tells when it applies. And if someone is considering playing something new to them, then I would encourage them to ask questions when they are not sure.


Not commonly realised, this is very true. Kickback was invented before Rubens; he just extended the idea.

As I understand Gerber's reasons for inventing the convention, there was no thought given to what Rubens later called the Useful Space Principle, the impetus was "we can't use 4NT, so what do we do?" Theory at the time said 4M was needed for natural purposes, so that left the minors, and 4♣ probably just seemed more "natural" than 4♦.