[MickyB]

I know that Flannery-hating is going out of fashion, but really I don't see what problem it is trying to solve*. 1H:1N, 2C on 2 cards is normally fine unless responder is 3154, whereas 1S:1N, 2C on three cards is problematic more frequently - 1543, 1453, 1552, 0553 may all finish in 6-card fits. Some point to nice 2/1 auctions after a 2m response holding 4S4m, but now people are doing that even without Flannery, and playing 1H;2m, 2S as not showing extras. Retaining 2S as showing extras is nice I guess but it's nothing to get excited about.

Contrary to popular opinion, if you are playing Flannery you should really be playing KI as well. Bidding 1H-P-1N frequently and 1H-P-1S infrequently is inefficient, just like rarely bidding 1C-P-1D playing Walsh instead of Transfer Walsh. It's better for 1S to show 0-4 spades, now 1N = 3+diamonds, 2C = natural 3+cards, 2D = 11-13 or 17+ with hearts, 2H = 14-16, 2S = reverse.

* Actually, I did decide that Flannery would be useful if playing 1M:2X as natural, showing either good preference or GF, as it meant 1H:2m, 2H denied four spades, and 4S2H 5-10 could ignore the spades and show good or bad preference as appropriate, but I rather doubt that is relevant to anyone else.

[Stephen Tu]

 MickyB, on 2013-February-04, 19:49, said:

I know that Flannery-hating is going out of fashion, but really I don't see what problem it is trying to solve*. 1H:1N, 2C on 2 cards is normally fine

It's not like 4522 after FNT is the only problem Flannery addresses. After 1h-1s-2s, not playing Flannery there is ambiguity whether opener has 3 or 4 cd support, which can affect responder's decision whether to go on in borderline cases. You avoid some dodgy 4-3 2♠ contracts when there was a better spot elsewhere. There are some concealment advantages also after 1h-1nt-?-? when responder hides 4 cd spade suit. 2d-4M also is an effective auction that doesn't unnecessarily reveal too much about declarer's hand.

In 2/1 auctions I think Martel/Stansby did some rearranging, utilizing 2s artificially after 1H-2m for things other than spades since they didn't have to cater to minimum 45 major hands.

I think overall Flannery gains you a little on average both when you open it or when you open 1H. But unclear whether it gain as much compared to normal weak 2d (underrated by a lot of people, arguably harder to defend than 2h opening), and maybe gain less vs. KI than vs. std?

Also it would have stopped some annoying losses from me from partners expecting (unreasonably IMO) for 1♥-(2m)-dbl-(p)-2♠ to 100% guarantee 4 cd spades. Does anyone agree with my partners on this sequence?

[fromageGB]

 mycroft, on 2013-February-04, 15:25, said:

I hate Flannery hands when I'm not playing it and partner bids 1NT forcing; especially when I'm 4=5=2=2.

Why? I play natural with forcing NT with one partner, and if she bids 1NT she denies 4 spades, so you have missed nothing other than the possibility of playing 1NT, which you have decided to forgo when you decided to go with the benefits of a forcing NT. I think you will find that people with this hand who play Flannery can also not play in 1NT. Just bid whatever your normal style is after a forcing NT. For me it is 2♦ to deny the strength a 2♣ bid shows, and partner will not pass without 6 of them, if she has 2 hearts.

[kenberg]

 Stephen Tu, on 2013-February-04, 21:07, said:

Also it would have stopped some annoying losses from me from partners expecting (unreasonably IMO) for 1♥-(2m)-dbl-(p)-2♠ to 100% guarantee 4 cd spades. Does anyone agree with my partners on this sequence?

My feeling on such tings is that your partner should not have to spend much time worrying that you might have only a (presumably strong) three card holding. That's not exactly the same as saying that you will always have four. If he has the opponent's minor well stopped it could hardly hurt if his next bid were in NT.

[JLOGIC]

I play flannery with my regular partner, I think the biggest gains are in competitive auctions, it is really nice to know partner has 5 spades right away, and it is also nice in negative double/preempt auctions to know partner does not have 4 spades. For instance, 1H 2D X p 2S showing either 3 or 4 spades has a lot of downsides, knowing that it's 3 is useful.

That said, I'd still rather play weak 2D. I think it is quite an effective bid, and with KI you can show 4 spades vs 5 right away (though competitive auctions are still an issue).

I also think playing 1N more often is good. 1H-1N AP and they dont know whether declarer has 4 spades or not has been good in my experience, though maybe it doesn't matter that much at imps it seems really good in MP or BAM. So I don't think mickybs point is as clear as he makes it out to be though I do think he's probably right.

[JLOGIC]

 PhilKing, on 2013-February-04, 15:46, said:

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.

Part of the problem with this analysis is that the flannery pairs are probably 90 % martel/stansby hamman/wolff or hamman/soloway or hamman/zia and levin/wesintein. So we know they are going to be far better than the average pair in the sample.

[Charlie Yu]

Using an opening to describe a specific hand is supposed a winner. The problem is that 2D space could have been used for hands that occur much more common like weak 2D, or hands that are much harder to describe by standard methods like weak two suiter.

[xx1943]

 Charlie Yu, on 2013-February-09, 06:10, said:

Using an opening to describe a specific hand is supposed a winner. The problem is that 2D space could have been used for hands that occur much more common like weak 2D, or hands that are much harder to describe by standard methods like weak two suiter.

100% agree. Flannery has it merits either as preempt or attempt to score game: 2♦ pass 4♠ and fourth hand has a decent hand and no idea who can win which contract. Declarers hand is completely unknown. The decribed opening hand will be tabled.

[fromageGB]

 xx1943, on 2013-February-09, 06:53, said:

100% agree. Flannery has it merits either as preempt or attempt to score game: 2♦ pass 4♠ and fourth hand has a decent hand and no idea who can win which contract. Declarers hand is completely unknown. The decribed opening hand will be tabled.

I think you will find the equivalent natural bidding sequence 1♥ p 1♠ X 2♠ p 4♠ has declarer's hand equally unknown. And opener's hand equally known.

[xx1943]

 fromageGB, on 2013-February-09, 07:06, said:

I think you will find the equivalent natural bidding sequence 1♥ p 1♠ X 2♠ p 4♠ has declarer's hand equally unknown. And opener's hand equally known.

After 1♥ pass 1♠ 4th hand has a lot of possibilities to describe his hand but after 2♦ pass 4♠ he has to make a critical decision without knowing anything about partners or RHOs hand.
We had in the last years many very good results and no desaster at all using flannery. The biggest desaster was when I forgot the convention and raised preemptitive to 5♦
LOL

[kenberg]

 xx1943, on 2013-February-09, 06:53, said:

100% agree. Flannery has it merits either as preempt or attempt to score game: 2♦ pass 4♠ and fourth hand has a decent hand and no idea who can win which contract. Declarers hand is completely unknown. The decribed opening hand will be tabled.

Yes, this is the sort of thing I find useful about Flannery. I still prefer the weak 2♦, and perhaps I would prefer the multi if I took the time, and if there were not so many barriers to playing it here in the good old U.S.A., but Flannery is not a bad convention.

I think it is really difficult to accurately evaluate a convention. Take the multi, for example. By itself, it's no great shakes as near as I can see. But if frees up 2M for other uses. Also, the vulnerabilities of the multi need to be effectively exploited or else it will look better than it is. I don't keep track of various laws but it seems the multi used to be allowed in "normal" pairs games, at least I used to encounter it some but not often. Less often now. So pard and I agreed to play the acbl defense, simple version. This seemed adequate enough for something we encountered occasionally but not often. If we came across it more, we would have gone for something more substantial.

Back to Flannery. Of course people should have agreements on defense. (2♦)-X means what? Diamonds? Strong NT? There are quite a few pairs who don't know, and this can artificially inflate the value of a convention. Or at least I think of it as an artificial benefit. I generally avoid a convention if I think that its strongest plus is that my opponents are probably unfamiliar with proper defense against it.

Anyway, I prefer the weak 2, Flannery is ok but not great. That's my two bits.

[y66]

Some excerpts from Steve Weinstein's I love Flannery thread at BridgeWinners:

Quote

Bobby Levin

I would say the bid that has made us the most money over the years is 2d-(p)-3M which is a mixed raise-you get to thin cold games but more often you make it very difficult for the opponents to get into the bidding. since you can invite by starting with 2nt and then bidding 3 of a major over a shortness response what you need is a way to signoff, make a natural slam try and bid rkc in a given suit. the way we do this is to play over any 3 level response by opener responder bids :

4c-relay to 4d to make a non forcing, natural slam try
4d-relay to 4h to place the contract
bid 4h thru 5c as rkc in up the line suits except shortness suits is always 5c, and when opener is 2-2 in the minors 5c is rkc in spades

to deal with 4-6 hand we open flannery and if partner bids 2h and we have an exceptional hand we can raise to 3 hearts.
If partner bids 2nt we show our shortness and have the option over a 3nt call by partner to bid 4c showing a good 4h bid or 4d to show a bad 4h bid both with 4-6

no more flannery secrets today…….

Quote

Bobby levin

More Flannery free cheese? Your partner opens 1 heart and you have 5 not great spades and 3 at least decent hearts and a game force. Without Flannery you would have to bid 1 spade because you cant miss the 5-4 spade fit. With Flannery you can see that your 5-3 heart fit will play at least as well as your 5-3 spade fit and can get the auction off to a better start by bidding 2 clubs (of course you alert opponents that 2 clubs could be 2) We have had better slam auctions and in matchpoints there have been many hands where the opponents dont lead a club or lead a spade and lose a vital tempo.

Quote

Adam Meyerson

A lot of the advantages of Flannery come because standard methods after 1♥-1♠ are pretty bad. Opener has problems deciding what to do with three-card spade support. Responder has a tough time producing a good GF auction after 1♥-1♠-2♦. Both these situations work out better playing Flannery, because the 1♠ response is less frequent and more informative. However, it seems to me that a more direct attack on this problem would be better; for example Kaplan Inversion can find your spade fits and conceal your four-card spade holding. Even on the General Chart you could play artificial rebids by opener after 1♥-1♠ (I like 1NT=balanced or diamonds and 2♦ = good spade raise). These methods can remove most of the negative inference advantages from Flannery. Sure, you get good results when you open 2♦ but other meanings for that opening can easily be both more frequent and more effective.

[MickyB]

Bobby's 2nd point disappears if compared with 1H:2C, 2S not showing extras.

[Charlie Yu]

If Flannery 2D-P-3M was a winner, wouldnt (weak majors)2D-P-3M a bigger winner?