[CSGibson]

 cherdano, on 2012-October-06, 05:12, said:

Why?

I was born in Ohio, on a farm. As a baby I was involved in a horrible house-fire. A stranger stopped, and helped my family to safety, braving the flames to rescue me. The stranger's name was Hank, and he became a very close family friend.

Over the years, Hank taught me a lot about the world outside of the farm - he had traveled all over the world while in the army, and had stories about Europe, Asia, and Africa which would blow my young mind. He taught me to appreciate the diversity in life.

Several years later, while on his deathbed, and while I was just getting into duplicate bridge, Hank made me promise one thing: If I had a chance to play kickback, I should take it. I didn't understand at the time; Hank didn't know bridge, and I didn't know the convention, but I always remembered what he said. Thus, anytime anyone proposes to play kickback, I say yes, out of memory for my dear friend Hank.

[cherdano]

But in all seriousness, kickback is probably the single most disaster-prone convention. (Unless you ask me to play Ghestem, which I will always forget.)

[CSGibson]

 cherdano, on 2012-October-06, 15:04, said:

But in all seriousness, kickback is probably the single most disaster-prone convention. (Unless you ask me to play Ghestem, which I will always forget.)

At this point I've never had a kickback disaster (Jinx?). Obviously this has some element of luck to it since I am obviously not a master of kickback fundamentals, but its also because in partnerships where I play it, we are very active postmortem in asking questions about both the auctions that occurred and the auctions that didn't.

I would be reluctant to play kickback in a non-serious partnership, but in any partnership where we are serious enough to have system notes, I'll be ok with it.

[Trinidad]

 cherdano, on 2012-October-06, 15:04, said:

But in all seriousness, kickback is probably the single most disaster-prone convention. (Unless you ask me to play Ghestem, which I will always forget.)

In all seriousness, this is simply not true. There is one simple rule and Justin has given it.

 JLOGIC, on 2012-October-04, 13:53, said:

Kickback replaces cuebidding auctions, so if 4S would normally be a cuebid then it is kickback.

In cases like the one in the OP, the real question is not: "Is 4♠ kickback?". The real question is the opposite: "Is 4♠ natural?". If you are not on the same wavelength with partner, you will have an accident. Whether the misunderstanding about 4♠ is kickback vs natural or cuebid vs natural or "Inverted Turbo Declarative Interrogative" vs natural is completely irrelevant. Everybody will have the same accident.

Does kickback have drawbacks? Yes, of course: You cannot use 4♠ as a cue in those cases where cueing would be better than ace asking. You will have to cue 4NT and you lost your ace ask. But kickback also has certain advantages.

And if you want to know what is the most disaster-prone convention, then it is kickback's brother: RKCB. Why? Because with one partner you play 1430 and with the other 0314. With kickback, you don't have that problem.

Rik

[gnasher]

I can think of one reason why Kickback may have more disasters than RKCB: people who think that Kickback is a good idea also tend to think that cue-bids above game are a waste of time, or too difficult. If you play normal Keycard but your partnership hardly ever bids 4♠ as a cue-bid, you will know that 4♠ was probably intended as natural. Playing Kickback, the same partnership will more often be in doubt about what 4♠ means.

Note that this is purely a theoretical analysis. I have never had a Kickback disaster, and I'm fairly sure I never will. I'm also not expecting any Ghestem disasters.

[gnasher]

 Trinidad, on 2012-October-07, 02:00, said:

In all seriousness, this is simply not true. There is one simple rule and Justin has given it.

That would work, but many players don't assume such simple rules. For example, we see people playing 1♦-1♥;3♦-4♥ as Kickback. Or if they don't, they may be unclear whether the ace-ask is 4♠, 4NT, or neither. If people have a disaster because of this uncertainty, that may not be the fault of the convention, but it's still a disaster that arose because they were playing Kickback.

[cherdano]

Consider the auction
1H 2C
2H 3D
4D ?

If you aren't sure whether 4H here is natural or a cue - well, as long as you don't cue shortness in partner's 5-card suit, the difference isn't all that big! Also, say you are unsure whether 4H is natural or a cue, and you want to ask for aces. Then you can still bid 4NT! But if you are unsure whether 4H or 4S asks for aces, then you cannot ask for aces.

[fromageGB]

 gnasher, on 2012-October-07, 02:35, said:

If people have a disaster because of this uncertainty, that may not be the fault of the convention, but it's still a disaster that arose because they were playing Kickback.

More accurately, it is a disaster that arose because they were playing kickback without agreements on meta-rules. 4♥ is kickback on our rules.

I don't really see this (3♦) X 4♦ 4♥ 4♠ as a spade-club hand. Is that some sort of equal level conversion that I don't play?
So (3♦) X 4♦ 4♠ 4NT would be natural with a diamond stop and a club-heart hand?
I would assume both are ace asking agreeing partner's suit.

In answer to Chris's OP, my metarule here is that if it can be ace asking, it is. As X was a takeout implying some sort of spade support, an immediate 4♠ is to play, and 4♠ in response to 4♥ is ace asking.

[fromageGB]

 cherdano, on 2012-October-07, 04:14, said:

Consider the auction
1H 2C
2H 3D
4D ?

If you aren't sure whether 4H here is natural or a cue - well, as long as you don't cue shortness in partner's 5-card suit, the difference isn't all that big! Also, say you are unsure whether 4H is natural or a cue, and you want to ask for aces. Then you can still bid 4NT! But if you are unsure whether 4H or 4S asks for aces, then you cannot ask for aces.

I don't think you should be unsure, because you shouldn't be playing kickback unless you agree metarules that cover this, as this is a basic situation. The rules themselves are not so important providing you agree them. By mine, 4♥ is ace asking in diamonds, because if I had a hand that wanted to play in hearts I would have bid 3♥ (forcing, or 4♥ if not) or 4♠ on the previous round.

[gnasher]

fromageGB said:

More accurately, it is a disaster that arose because they were playing kickback without agreements on meta-rules.

fromageGB said:

I don't think you should be unsure, because you shouldn't be playing kickback unless you agree metarules that cover this, as this is a basic situation. The rules themselves are not so important providing you agree them.

Cherdano didn't say that Kickback was intrinsically flawed. He implied that a newish partnership shouldn't play it, and said that it's "probably the single most disaster-prone convention". You seem to be advancing arguments that support his first opinion and at least don't refute the second.

Quote

I don't really see this (3♦) X 4♦ 4♥ 4♠ as a spade-club hand. Is that some sort of equal level conversion that I don't play?

Apparently it's something that you don't play, but it's pretty normal, and certainly not new. 4♦ says "I want to play in game, and I have a choice of suits to offer", then 4♠ says "... but hearts isn't one of them."

Quote

So (3♦) X 4♦ 4♠ 4NT would be natural with a diamond stop and a club-heart hand?

No, I think that would be keycard for spades. 5♣ would be a correction of contract with x4x5 (or even x4x4). If you had a hand where you thought 4NT might be better than 5♣, you'd probably just bid 3NT and forget the heart suit.

[PhilKing]

 fromageGB, on 2012-October-07, 05:57, said:

I don't really see this (3♦) X 4♦ 4♥ 4♠ as a spade-club hand. Is that some sort of equal level conversion that I don't play?

So (3♦) X 4♦ 4♠ 4NT would be natural with a diamond stop and a club-heart hand?
I would assume both are ace asking agreeing partner's suit.

I hesitate to say it's completely standard, because there are at two people who don't think so. But it's standard. Cue = two places to play. The corollary is that the doubler bids 4♥ over the cue with 54 in the majors in case partner is 2425 but bidding panels usually drop the ball when this problem is posed (and it tends to do rounds every decade or so).

As to the second point, I think "everyone" plays 4NT as RKCB.

[FrancesHinden]

Jillybean has asked me to post all our rules on kickback, so here's some of them (all of them would take up too much room, for reasons I'll explain).
We come from the opposite end of the scale from fromageGB i.e. if it possibly could not be ace asking, then it isn't.
These rules are also a long way from optimal. We think kickback isn't a massively useful convention, so we decided only to play it in some very clear positions because the gain is smaller than the loss from confusion. So while our 'what does double mean' rules are very long and complicated because we think the different auctions are important, for kickback we have shorter and simpler but much less efficient rules as the cost/benefit equation is different.

With hearts trumps
4♠ asks for aces if all the following are true:
- the auction is completely uncontested [this is obviously not the optimal rule but it works]
- either hearts have been explicitly agreed as trumps, or there is no room to agree hearts as trumps so 4NT would not be natural
- 4♠ could not possible be natural [so, for example, 1H-1S-3H-4S probably should be kickback, because 3S is forcing, but it isn't because 4S could be natural]

with a minor suit potentially trumps
4 of the next highest unbid suit asks for aces if all the following are true:
- it is not one of the specific exception auctions we have agreed where 4 of our minor asks for aces
- it is a jump
- either the minor has been explicitly agreed, or partner has just (re)bid them promising at least 5 cards in the suit, or the asker has just transferred to a 6+card suit opposite a 1NT opening (e.g. 1NT-2NT(clubs)-3C(forced)-4D)

4NT is keycard for the minor only if all the following are true:
- there is no kickback bid available
- the minor suit has been explicitly agreed
- it is bid directly over 4m in an auction where the bidder cannot possibly not have anything to cue (e.g. 1S - 2C (FG) - 4C (extras, 5-card support) - 4NT )

We have a small number of specific auctions where a different bid is keycard:
1m-2m(inverted)-4m
3m-4om
2C-2D-2H(kokish)-2NT(6+clubs)-4C
2C-2NT(club positive)-4C
(and the last two similar with diamonds trumps)

This gives us a lot of minor suit auctions with no way of asking for keycards, but as until recently we never had any way of ace-asking with a minor agreed, we don't miss them.
Again, there are obviously inefficiencies here (1D-1H-3D-4H probably ought to ask for aces, but it doesn't, 4S does)

[Trinidad]

 FrancesHinden, on 2012-October-07, 10:20, said:

Jillybean has asked me to post all our rules on kickback

Thanks for posting your agreements. But can you tell me how

 FrancesHinden, on 2012-October-07, 10:20, said:

With hearts trumps
4♠ asks for aces if all the following are true:
- the auction is completely uncontested [this is obviously not the optimal rule but it works]
- either hearts have been explicitly agreed as trumps, or there is no room to agree hearts as trumps so 4NT would not be natural
- 4♠ could not possible be natural [so, for example, 1H-1S-3H-4S probably should be kickback, because 3S is forcing, but it isn't because 4S could be natural]

is fundamentally different from:

With spades trumps
4NT asks for aces if all the following are true:
- the auction is completely uncontested [this is obviously not the optimal rule but it works]
- either spades have been explicitly agreed as trumps, or there is no room to agree spades as trumps so 4NT would not be natural
- 4NT could not possible be natural [so, for example, 1S-2C-2S-4NT probably should be RKCB, because 2NT is forcing, but it isn't because 4NT could be natural]

?

Rik

[Trinidad]

 cherdano, on 2012-October-07, 04:14, said:

Consider the auction
1H 2C
2H 3D
4D ?

If you aren't sure whether 4H here is natural or a cue - well, as long as you don't cue shortness in partner's 5-card suit, the difference isn't all that big! Also, say you are unsure whether 4H is natural or a cue, and you want to ask for aces. Then you can still bid 4NT! But if you are unsure whether 4H or 4S asks for aces, then you cannot ask for aces.

So your point is:

• If you go wrong with natural cuebidding without kickback and you don't know whether 4♥ is a cue or natural, you might end up playing 4♥ in a 6-1 fit with a singleton ace or king where you should be playing 5♦, 6♦, 7♦ or slam in NT.
  
• If you go wrong with kickback and you don't know whether 4♥ is kickback or natural, you might end up playing 4♥ in a 6-1 fit with any singleton where you should be playing 5♦, 6♦, 7♦ or slam in NT.

Do you consider this difference so significant that it should be the deciding factor whether or not to play kickback?

Rik

[gnasher]

 Trinidad, on 2012-October-07, 12:28, said:

So your point is:

• If you go wrong with natural cuebidding without kickback and you don't know whether 4♥ is a cue or natural, you might end up playing 4♥ in a 6-1 fit with a singleton ace or king where you should be playing 5♦, 6♦, 7♦ or slam in NT.
• If you go wrong with kickback and you don't know whether 4♥ is kickback or natural, you might end up playing 4♥ in a 6-1 fit with any singleton where you should be playing 5♦, 6♦, 7♦ or slam in NT.

Do you consider this difference so significant that it should be the deciding factor whether or not to play kickback?

Here are some other considerations:
- When responder cue-bids hearts, he's more likely to have Hx than singleton honour, because there are more ways to be dealt Hx.
- When responder cue-bids, that usually means that he is uncertain about whether we have enough for slam, or he's concerned about control of a particular suit. When responder tries to ask for keycards, that means that he thinks that given enough keycards we belong in slam. Hence there is a higher risk of missing slam when you pass Kickback than when you pass a cue-bid.
- For many partnerships opener could have only five hearts. A 5-Hx fit will usually play better than a 5-1 or 5-xx fit.

[jallerton]

 Trinidad, on 2012-October-07, 02:00, said:

And if you want to know what is the most disaster-prone convention, then it is kickback's brother: RKCB. Why? Because with one partner you play 1430 and with the other 0314.

Yes, whoever (it may have been Eddie Kantar) came up with the idea of inverting the 5♣/♦ responses has a lot to answer for. The number of net gains from making the 5♣ response theoretically more common has been easily outweighed by the number of slam auctions messed up when the two partners disagreed on the meaning of the 5♣/♦ response.

 Trinidad, on 2012-October-07, 02:00, said:

With kickback, you don't have that problem.

Rik

Why not? Some Kickback players use the step 1 response to show 0 or 3; other Kickback players use the step 1 response to show 1 or 4.

[Trinidad]

 gnasher, on 2012-October-07, 12:45, said:

Here are some other considerations:
- When responder cue-bids hearts, he's more likely to have Hx than singleton honour, because there are more ways to be dealt Hx.
- When responder cue-bids, that usually means that he is uncertain about whether we have enough for slam, or he's concerned about control of a particular suit. When responder tries to ask for keycards, that means that he thinks that given enough keycards we belong in slam. Hence there is a higher risk of missing slam when you pass Kickback than when you pass a cue-bid.
- For many partnerships opener could have only five hearts. A 5-Hx fit will usually play better than a 5-1 or 5-xx fit.

Sorry, but I truly cannot see how opener could have only five hearts on an auction where he deliberately bypasses a four card diamond suit to rebid his hearts. Maybe I have a blind spot there, but either:

• opener has already shown a five card suit by opening 1♥
  
• opener would have shown a five card heart suit implicitly by rebidding 2♦

And since opener has four diamonds, there is no need to rebid 2♥ on a five card suit. So, I would conclude that opener has shown six hearts. He can only have five hearts if he was 6-3 in the reds the previous round of the bidding (and he can even have four hearts if he was 5-3 in the reds in the previous round) .

If I have a blind spot, please enlighten me.

As an aside, 4♥ should be natural on Cherdano's auction.

Rik

[Trinidad]

 jallerton, on 2012-October-07, 13:35, said:

Why not? Some Kickback players use the step 1 response to show 0 or 3; other Kickback players use the step 1 response to show 1 or 4.

There may be some players who play 1430 kickback. I haven't met them yet, but that probably says more about me than anything else. Fact is that technically 1430 RKCB is marginally better than 0314 RKCB. 1430 kickback is not technically better than 0314 kickback, not even marginally. So, there is no reason to confuse kickback with a "new and improved" variation.

Rik

[fromageGB]

Thanks PhilKing and gnasher for the "2 places to play" cue bid explanation.

I think it is certainly apparent to all that playing Kickback when you have no clear rules on potentially ambiguous bids is a disaster that more than offsets any benefit. In my view the rules themselves are not really important if both partners agree them, but Frances and I move in completely different circles, so I would not recommend my simple ones to any new adopter! But don't play kickback unless you have had partnership time to agree something.

[PhilKing]

 Trinidad, on 2012-October-07, 13:49, said:

There may be some players who play 1430 kickback. I haven't met them yet, but that probably says more about me than anything else.
Rik

I play it, and my partner plays it as well.