[xx1943]

We play Flannery since many year and never missed the weak 2♦, but got a lot of great results by the flannery convention.
I'm wondering why this is used so rarely.
For those, who don't even know the convention: Here a link to BridgeGuys.
Here an example of a hand,where we found a nice 4♠ in a 4==4-fit with only 20HCP.
I admit I was lucky in partner finding with no lost values in the heart-suit.
For those, who don't like movies here the pictures:

[Siegmund]

It's quite common in my area -- on maybe 25% of the int-adv crowd's convention cards.

I, personally, don't ever play it. Not because it is "bad," but because it's a solution to a problem that only exists if you play the "wrong" set of responses to a 1H opening. I just bid 1H-1S whenever I have 4, and play that my semiforcing 1H-1NT can be passed by a minimum 4S5H opener.

On your posted hand, all those 200s aren't there "because they weren't playing Flannery," but rather, because East wasn't imaginative. After the bidding starts 1H-1S-2S, the other Easts know exactly as much about West's hand as you do after the 2D opening. Those other Easts simply failed to see any potential in their 7-loser hand and make a second bid.

[awm]

Not clear to me how exactly Flannery helped you here. If you had opened 1♥ couldn't you bid 1♥-1♠-2♠-4♠ just as easily? Certainly the 4♠ call is aggressive (you are lucky partner doesn't have better hearts) but I don't see how the Flannery opening made it a better bet than the slower auction. In fact, over 1♥-1♠-2♠ the additional space could allow you to have a better sequence where you would avoid game when partner has wasted values in hearts (via responder making some sort of game try instead of blasting and hoping to get lucky).

There are some expert pairs who love Flannery (Martel-Stansby come to mind) but there are also many expert pairs who think it's a waste of a call that could better be used for something else (weak two, multi, etc).

[kenberg]

I play Flannery with a partner. I like 2♦ to be a weak two, but I am not insistent. As has been said, I don't see Flannery as a big help here. Probably we would not reach 4♠ whether we were or were not playing Flannery, with perhaps a slightly better chance if we were not:
1♥ 1♠
2♠ 3♦
?

On this auction, as I play it, 3♦ shows diamond values. Opener can now regard his ace as quite valuable and maybe bids 4♠. maybe he bids 3♠.

If he does bid 3♠ then East can still bid 4♠, knowing partner has four spades, five hearts, minimum count. The same information he could know if the opening is a Flannery 2♦. But he probably wouldn't. It's wonderful that all of West's values are working. No wasted values at all in hearts, a fact that is not evident whether the West opening is 1♥ or a Flannery 2♦.

It's true that some conventions sometimes are given either unrealistic praise or unrealistic criticism. Gerber and Flannery are often singled out as unneeded conventions. I find them both useful, but in the case of the 2♦ bid my own preference is weak 2.

[mgoetze]

Is this a satire? Surely noone could really think that that hand is a good demonstration of the advantages of Flannery?

[blackshoe]

Personally, I like 2♦ as Mexican — 21-22 HCP and 7 controls, balanced, or GF with primary diamonds, unbalanced. OTOH, I do recall Anderson and Zenkel saying something like "most experts have tried other meanings for 2♦ and eventually gone back to the weak two". I have to admit that with my current partners, I play it as weak 2, because they're unwilling to try anything else.

[GreenMan]

Anything Stansby-Martel and Levin-Weinstein play has to have something going for it. IMHO whether to play 2♦ as Flannery, Multi, natural, Mexican or something else is largely a matter of style and personal preference, since they all have advantages.

[nige1]

xx1943, on 2013-February-03, 12:11, said:

We play Flannery since many year and never missed the weak 2♦, but got a lot of great results by the flannery convention. I'm wondering why this is used so rarely. For those, who don't even know the convention: Here a link to BridgeGuys. Here an example of a hand,where we found a nice 4♠ in a 4==4-fit with only 20HCP. I admit I was lucky in partner finding with no lost values in the heart-suit.

Siegmund, on 2013-February-03, 12:23, said:

On your posted hand, all those 200s aren't there "because they weren't playing Flannery," but rather, because East wasn't imaginative. After the bidding starts 1H-1S-2S, the other Easts know exactly as much about West's hand as you do after the 2D opening. Those other Easts simply failed to see any potential in their 7-loser hand and make a second bid.

As Siegmund points out, East evaluated his ♠ JTxx ♥ - ♦ KQJxxx ♣ xxx better than most other pairs. Nevertheless, as xx1943 implies, 4♠ would be a less of a Flannery triumph, if West held, say. ♠ xxxx ♥ KQT9x ♦ Ax ♣ Kx rather than his actual ♠ KQxx ♥ T9xxxx ♥ Ax ♣ Kx

[Zelandakh]

awm, on 2013-February-03, 12:25, said:

If you had opened 1♥ couldn't you bid 1♥-1♠-2♠-4♠ just as easily?

But Adam, then South could overcall 2♣ and North has the most obvious 5♣ raise in the world. So only Flannery can save you here.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

game is good, because East got lucky in finding no wasted values
in the 5 card suit partner promised, but finding partner with the
Ace of diamonds, which does fit nicely with the KQJ in the East hand.

Add to this the fact, that you know, you have exactly an 8 card fit,
a 44 fit, you could argue, that you got lucky makeing game, and those,
who decided to take their plus score at MP got unlucky.

Flannery is certainly a reasonable convention, and the given hand may be
a posterchild for staying low in 2S=, while everyone else is 3S-1.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[kenberg]

Zelandakh, on 2013-February-04, 04:53, said:

But Adam, then South could overcall 2♣ and North has the most obvious 5♣ raise in the world. So only Flannery can save you here.

North has the most obvious what in the what? Not to me.

But my experience is that Flannery does sometimes provide an advantage when a pre-empt by the opponents is in the offing.

Actually, a 2♣ overcall would help if I and my clone held the EW cards.
After the uncontested 1♥ -1♠ -2♠ I, as East, would worry that my clone, as West, might have raised on three. I would still bid 3♦ if the opponents stayed out, and as I said earlier, my clone might or might not raise to 4♠.

But suppose it begins
1♥-Pass-1♠-2♣
Quite possibly this would happen, and now partner's 2♠ is unequivocally four card support. It's true that if North now raises to 5♣ I am sort of stuck, but 3♣ seems more likely to me, after which I make a try with 3♦ and partner, pleased with his holdings after the club overcall, certainly accepts.

I don't want to say "Surely you are joking" about the 5♣ bid, but were you? North knows nothing about the heart void in East's hand and might well figure that if East is planning on developing hearts this may not be such a piece of cake for him.

Anyway, in the OP, West showed four spades, five hearts, and 11-15 highs. East jumped to game on an 8 count and a strong, although not yet ready to run, diamond suit. He found a perfectly fitting dummy and the Ace of clubs well placed. This speaks more of his karma than of his conventions.

Btw, we can take six tricks against 5♣X right? Not that we would, but we could. Ruff a heart, two diamonds, ruff a heart, then a spade shift and wait for two black suit tricks. If North gets to jump to 5♣. I get to have this defense against it.

[Zelandakh]

kenberg, on 2013-February-04, 07:13, said:

I don't want to say "Surely you are joking" about the 5♣ bid, but were you? North knows nothing about the heart void in East's hand and might well figure that if East is planning on developing hearts this may not be such a piece of cake for him.

Yes, I was joking. Even a rank beginner would not raise 2♣ to 5 with this 3433 pile. I should probably have used a smiley here but I am trying to live without them.

[kenberg]

Zelandakh, on 2013-February-04, 07:51, said:

Yes, I was joking. Even a rank beginner would not raise 2♣ to 5 with this 3433 pile. I should probably have used a smiley here but I am trying to live without them.

Whew! I thought so but one encounters wild opinions online. No smileys needed, I also prefer to live w/o them.

[glen]

GreenMan, on 2013-February-03, 17:07, said:

Anything Stansby-Martel and Levin-Weinstein play has to have something going for it ...

are Stansby and/or Martel playing it with their new partners?

[GreenMan]

glen, on 2013-February-04, 09:50, said:

are Stansby and/or Martel playing it with their new partners?

I see that Stansby plays it with Bramley. Not sure about Martel-Zia.

[fromageGB]

Like others, I seem to have no trouble without Flannery. In two main partnerships I play 2♦ as natural weak, or 4+4+ majors weak, and much prefer either of those. Flannery seems designed for a problem you can overcome in other ways, whatever the problem was.

[mycroft]

I hate Flannery hands when I'm not playing it and partner bids 1NT forcing; especially when I'm 4=5=2=2. Even if I don't play 1NT 100% forcing (which I do), if I have 15, I don't really want to pass it, "non-forcing" or not.

As a Precision player (who also gives up the weak 2♦ call), you likely haven't missed the 2♦ opener because you don't pay attention to what happens on the weak 2 hands (or you play 3m weak enough that a fair number of your opponents' 2♦ bids you don't pass). Yeah, they probably break even 65% of the time, but the other 35% are much more to the preempt's benefit than its detriment.

Many Flannery players say that they've never had a bad result when they open 2♦. I don't disbelieve them. I don't know how many of those "not bad results" are break-even, or maybe they missed where they gave away the overtrick by wrong-siding the hand (2♦-2NT; 3M-4M is the most common one of those). I rarely get bad results when I open 2♦ either (standard or Precision) :-).

[PhilKing]

Opening 2♦ is a winner whatever it means. Richard Pavlicek has collected vugraph stats from the major US events and the World Championships for the three most common treatments. These are the figures for when one side opened 2♦ and the other did something else:

1996-2012 Flannery (109) 314-224
1996-2012 Multi (295) 701-656
1996-2012 Weak 2D (211) 552-388

The bracketed figure is number of occurrences, followed by imps for and against.

Flannery gains the most per board, closely followed by the weak two. The multi lags a long way behind, but consider that the other table was usually opening a weak two and it is still a good figure. Multi adherents will also claim to gain more from being able to use 2M for something else.

[kenberg]

The figures from Pavlicek are definitely interesting and equally definitely need to be interpreted with care. No doubt multi players would say that the advantage of multi is that it allows them to use 2M in other way.s, and I don't doubt that claim. Whether it is worth it I am less sure, but surely they get something out of being able to use 2M to show, well, whatever they use it for. It varies.

Of course it also depends on level of play. If opponents have no idea what thier own bids mean over the multi then it becomes more effective. but the Pavlicek data presumably is not subject to that distortion.

[mikestar13]

It totally depends on the rest of your system and what is legal in your games. In several partnerships I play Flannery in ACBL General Convention Chart games--where most interesting artificial uses are disallowed (Multi, Ekrens, etc.) and something as simple as Kaplan Inversion in response to 1♥ is prohibited (for I/A's not familiar with KI: in response to 1♥, 1♠ denies ♠ and 1NT shows them. This can solve every problem Flannery does without using the 2♦ opening.) I would prefer not to play Flannery in less restrictive jurisdictions.