A Flannery inference

[jcreech]

In my mentoring sessions I talk about understandings and keeping on the same page.  I do not often play Flannery, but I do have some partnerships where the other player feels quite strongly about using the convention.  Here is a hand where I think I have the correct perspective on what my rebid means, but my partner clearly felt otherwise.

All red and the auction goes P - P - 1 - 2 ; X (negative)- P - ? and you hold:
  9853  AKQJ62  K7  A

Our agreements about Flannery include that it is permissible to open with a 6 card heart suit, the range is 11-15 and that if responder to Flannery bids 1 , it shows five or more spades.

Given those understandings, I argue that 2 is clearly shows 16 or more HCPs.  If I had less, I would have opened Flannery.  If I had a minimum with only 3 spades, I am more likely to rebid hearts, clubs or NT depending on the nature of my hand.

Now I also put this up as a bidding problem on Bridge Winners.  Clearly, my thinking is not the thinking of the players that have responded so far.  By and large, those responding to the poll think the appropriate rebid is 4 (73%).  Although some of the rationale has to be to right side this hand and protect the  K, but since partner made a negative double, you are doing that by bidding spades (so that would be short-sighted thinking).  I also think that a 4 call is a very unilateral bid - it accurately describes the quality of the heart suit but does not take into consideration that partner is stiff or void in the suit and totally disregards the secondary fit that partner has just made known.  This is a partnership game, and if you are going to bid like this, why not play with a robot or open 4 to start with.

The next poll choice was 3 (20%), so again, these are people who are not using the inference that I did not open 2 (Flannery). 

Granted, how bids in a system work together and the inferences are not the things that a lot of players think about, but it is something I try to do whenever I am trying out a new convention, or working back in an old convention that I haven't used for a while.

Am I off base on my thinking here?  I would hate to think that this is just a pointless rant.

The link to the full hand is here (you will have to copy and paste into a browser - otherwise you will see a blank hand):
https://www.bridgebase.com/tools/handviewer.html?lin=st||pn|South,West,North,East|md|1SKQJTHT7D32CK7654,S62H9843DJT54CJ98,S9853HAKQJ62DK7CA,SA74H5DAQ986CQT32|sv|b|rh||ah|Board%207|mb|P|mb|P|mb|1H|mb|2D|mb|D!|an|responsive|mb|P|mb|2S|mb|P|mb|P|mb|P|pc|H5|pc|H7|pc|H8|pc|HA|pc|CA|pc|C2|pc|C4|pc|C8|pc|S3|pc|SA|pc|SK|pc|S2|pc|C3|pc|CK|pc|C9|pc|D7|pc|SQ|pc|S6|pc|S5|pc|S4|mc|11|

[Masse24]

After my first reading, all of your logic made sense. But after thinking a bit deeper, I'm not so sure.

That 2 "clearly show 16 or more," can be debated. I can envision a minimum hand, unwilling to pass the double, without four spades, and with sketchy hearts. For example, what do you rebid with:

AQT - J9xxx - Qx - AJx ?

I would probably try 2 (willing to play a 4-3 fit at the 2-level) and hope partner does not get us too high.


I looked at your BW poll. I think you might get a couple more spade bidders if you specify the range of your Flannery. There are probably a couple of responders who only look at the hands, never bothering to read the additional information you provide. Also, I like the 4 rebid on the BW poll. This looks like a classic "he who knows, goes" hand. At least . . . that's my take on it. 

[kenberg]

The X forces you to bid. When I have forced partner to bid I allow for the possibility that he might have no bid he is fond of and is just doing the best he can. Maybe opener has 3=5=2=3 shape with the diamonds not worth bidding NT. So opener does what? With good hearts and lousy spades I guess I might rebid 2 . With good spades and lousy hearts I would probably, as Todd suggests, bid 2S.

Think of it from partner's point of view. The 2 bid comes around to him, he reasons "I have told partner I have four spades, he bid 2 , if he want to play in more spades he could have bid more spades."

Now after writing this I decided "Oh, I will go find my Flannery book by Flannery. I found it, it is even autographed by Flannery. But he doesn't discuss contested auctions. Ok, Steve Robinson discusses Flannery in Washington Standard. As near as I can see, he does not discuss contested Flannery auctions. So I put "Contested Flannery auctions" into Google. I am not sure just what I got, but it seemed that someone, several someones, named Flannery had died and they were auction off the estates, maybe contested.

We seem to be on our own. I like 3 . I can see just bidding 4 , but I like 3 .

Added: Since the opening was not 2 maybe I should not think of this as a Flannery auction. But it is a contested auction that is, perhaps, affected by Flannery.