[silvr bull]

In doing research on using Kickback to ask for aces, I could not find any examples of a jump to 4NT after a minor or H is agreed to be trump. I like using that jump to 4NT to ask about the trump suit holding. Suppose you pick up this hand and partner opens 1C (or reverse your minors and partner opens 1D, or reverse the round suits and partner opens 1H).
A
void
AKxxxxx
xxxxx

There is nothing you need to know except how many of the top three trump honors does partner have. Kickback 4D would ask for aces when C are trump, or 4H if D are trump, or 4S if H are trump, so a jump to 4NT can be used to ask for trump honors. 4NT would also ask about trump honors immediately after a weak 2D or 2H, or an opening preempt of 3C or 3D or 3H (since 4S would be Kickback for H). The responses (with either C or D or H as agreed trump) would be 5C=0 (or 1 if opener has only a 3 card suit), 5D=1, 5H=AQ or KQ, 5S=A&K with no extra length, 5NT=A&K with more length than shown in the earlier bidding, and 6C=3.

Edit to add: When S are the agreed trump suit, 4NT asks for aces, but a jump to 5C could ask for trump honors, with responses similar to the above.

I also searched online for a bridge convention called Silver, but I could not find any. Until someone shows me that this is all old stuff that was well known before, I am calling my "new" convention Silver.

[broze]

We often use the 4NT bid for exclusion Blackwood in the Kickback suit.

[gszes]

when contemplating a convention try and make sure there are no obvious holes.
In this case if your suit is clubs opener might easily hold Q(J)xx and have to bid
5d which puts you too high. Another problem if p holds say AKxx (showing 3+
initially) or heck AKx (showing 2+ initially) they would bid 6c and you would be
no closer to knowing if 7 is good or not. The convention might have merit if you
more severly define when it can be used---just a thought.

[aguahombre]

gszes, on 2013-April-20, 09:01, said:

The convention might have merit if you
more severly define when it can be used---just a thought.

Applicable to many conventions. Having a toy and using it in the wrong situations is something I harp on.

[PhilKing]

This convention neatly solves that age-old question - what to to with a 1-0-7-5 when partner opens our five-card suit and righty finds the Pass card.

[aguahombre]

PhilKing, on 2013-April-20, 10:53, said:

This convention neatly solves that age-old question - what to to with a 1-0-7-5 when partner opens our five-card suit and righty finds the Pass card.

[silvr bull]

PhilKing, on 2013-April-20, 10:53, said:

This convention neatly solves that age-old question - what to to with a 1-0-7-5 when partner opens our five-card suit and righty finds the Pass card.

You got me there! My example hand (cleverly crafted for clarity and simplicity to illustrate the point) never comes up, so my Silver convention is useless, and it is much better to use a jump to 4NT the way you and your partner have defined it. You do have a clearly defined better meaning for a jump to 4NT that you will share with us along with a few example hands, don't you?

Now that we know there is never a time when you might care if there are trump losers, humor me as I ask about other situations that also cannot ever happen. Suppose your partner opens a weak two in a suit you hold three small, along with enough aces, kings, and other stuff to consider bidding six or seven. The opponents can cooperate by your RHO bidding anything from pass up through 3S. Now you have the simple task of deciding how many trump losers you have so you will then know how high to bid. How do you do that? Or maybe your partner bids a weak jump overcall, or opens a three level preempt in your small doubleton, and your RHO bids anything from pass up through 3S. How do you know how many trump losers to expect?

Sorry for pressing the point, because none of those situations could ever happen either. Here is one that can happen, and did with me a few days ago. Partner held Void, AKQT9 Txx KQxxx. He opened 1H, I bid 2C, he raised to 3C (setting up a slam try sequence), and I bid 3D. The opponents found their pass cards with no difficulty. Assuming that my 3D showed the DA, partner needed to know only whether or not I also held the CA. If he could have bid 4S as exclusion Blackwood, that would have solved this problem, but we had not discussed that possibility, so partner had to guess how high to bid. Since 4D would have been Kickback and we have no clearly defined alternative meaning for a jump to 4NT, using that jump as Silver to ask for trump honors would have worked well for us.

[PhilKing]

silvr bull, on 2013-April-21, 00:55, said:

better meaning for a jump to 4NT that you will share with us along with a few example hands, don't you?

You've got to be careful with the kickback auctions. For instance, over 1♦, a 4♥ response is only Kickback if you are a junkie - for the rest of us it shows hearts. But say the auction was 1♠-2♦-3♦ and all you wanted to know about was diamond honours, then I would refer you to Broze's solution above: 4♥ is Kickback and 4NT is Exclusion for the impossible suit (hearts in this case).

In reality, you will almost never be interested only in trump honours, but Exclusion caters for this anyway, as well as the more likely position of wanting to confirm one other key card. Personally, I don't care for Exclusion in four-level minor suit auctions - I generally prefer to describe rather than ask, particularly when our critical decision comes slightly lower than in a major suit auction.

[aguahombre]

PhilKing, on 2013-April-21, 05:09, said:

You've got to be careful with the kickback auctions. For instance, over 1♦, a 4♥ response is only Kickback if you are a junkie - for the rest of us it shows hearts. But say the auction was 1♠-2♦-3♦ and all you wanted to know about was diamond honours, then I would refer you to Broze's solution above: 4♥ is Kickback and 4NT is Exclusion for the impossible suit (hearts in this case).

In reality, you will almost never be interested only in trump honours, but Exclusion caters for this anyway, as well as the more likely position of wanting to confirm one other key card. Personally, I don't care for Exclusion in four-level minor suit auctions - I generally prefer to describe rather than ask, particularly when our critical decision comes slightly lower than in a major suit auction.

This post shows you that, in addition to providing humor, our regular posters can be quite helpful; or, at least Phil can.

There is a solution, other than Broze' for handling exclusion when a minor is set as trump.
You could keep 4NT as a natural quant bid or as a directionless slam try by agreeing on 4m itself as the Key-card ask --any suit above the agreed minor could then be exclusion.

[PhilKing]

aguahombre, on 2013-April-21, 09:24, said:

This post shows you that, in addition to providing humor, our regular posters can be quite helpful; or, at least Phil can.

There is a solution, other than Broze' for handling exclusion when a minor is set as trump.
You could keep 4NT as a natural quant bid or as a directionless slam try by agreeing on 4m itself as the Key-card ask --any suit above the agreed minor could then be exclusion.

Thanks! I play 4m as RKC here as well. 4NT would show a void in pards suit for me. Pard can bid bid 5♥ as the infamous Sand Wedge RKC if he accepts and wants to check controls.

[FrancesHinden]

silvr bull, on 2013-April-21, 00:55, said:

Sorry for pressing the point, because none of those situations could ever happen either. Here is one that can happen, and did with me a few days ago. Partner held Void, AKQT9 Txx KQxxx. He opened 1H, I bid 2C, he raised to 3C (setting up a slam try sequence), and I bid 3D. The opponents found their pass cards with no difficulty. Assuming that my 3D showed the DA, partner needed to know only whether or not I also held the CA. If he could have bid 4S as exclusion Blackwood, that would have solved this problem, but we had not discussed that possibility, so partner had to guess how high to bid. Since 4D would have been Kickback and we have no clearly defined alternative meaning for a jump to 4NT, using that jump as Silver to ask for trump honors would have worked well for us.

This is a poor example, because if you haven't discussed the meaning of 4S here, you won't have discussed the meaning of a jump to 4NT either.