[viaduct]

FINCH CINCH - A PROGRESSIVE SLAM\GAME SYSTEM

Replacing Gerber, (Roman) Keycard and Blackwood by using progressive bids.

There are ALWAYS 5 Keycards involved, the 4 Aces, PLUS the KING of the ‘agreed’ trump suit, which if not already established or implied becomes the LAST NATURAL partnership bid suit, otherwise “Trumps” automatically default to ♣s.

RESPONSES TO 4♣ BID BY INITIATOR and Further Bids/Responses.

4♦ = 0 (or 3) Keycards;

4♥ = 1 (or 4) Keycards;

4♠ = 2 (or 5) Keycards without Trump QUEEN; but with the Trump QUEEN bid as
per King Bidding below (‘Next Bid up’ being 4NT).

After a 4♦, 4♥ or 4♠ reply, the initiator can now “sign-off” in game in “trumps”, or, bid the NEXT ”Non-Trump” bid up, and responder bids as per King Bidding below.

After a 4♦ or 4♥ response only (the 2 replies that don’t include the Trump Queen), the 2nd “Non-Trump” bid up, is used to ask about the trump QUEEN, and, without the trump QUEEN, responder calls the NEXT bid up, but, with the trump Queen, bids as per King Bidding below (‘Next Bid up’ now being the ‘Next Next Bid up’).
If the trump QUEEN is not held, the initiator can now “sign-off”, or seeking a SLAM bid the NEXT “Non-Trump” bid up, and responder bids as per King Bidding below.

After a 4♦ reply and with ♣s or ♦s as trumps, the initiator can bid GAME in 4NT.

King Bidding:-

‘Next Bid up’ with 0 (or 3) of the other 3 Kings (“trump” King already accounted for);
2 bids up with either the Lowest, OR (the Middle and Highest of the other 3 Kings);
3 bids up with either the Middle, OR (the Lowest and Highest of the other 3 Kings);
4 bids up with either the Highest, OR (the Lowest and Middle of the other 3 Kings).

“Kings” can be shown in 3 ways; replying to a “Kings” NEXT ”Non-Trump” bid up; with 2 Keycards + Queen of Trumps, or, affirming possession of the Trump Queen.

The beauty is, if for example ♥s are trumps, and your partner replies showing they have either the highest King (K♠) only, OR, they have both the lowest and the middle 2 Kings (K♣ and K♦) of the 3 remaining (K♥ excluded); then if you have the K♠ then they must have both the K♣ and K♦, OR, if you’ve either the K♣ or K♦, then they've got the K♠ only (neither K♣ nor K♦).

What SUIT should be considered “Trumps” in any Keycard system?
Last genuine (non-artificial) SUIT bid if any, (the suit before, if No Trumps was last).
However if one suit has been bid twice – by the same or both players – that should be “Trumps” (and if 2 suits bid twice then the later bid suit takes precedence), unless the
opener opened STRONG then “Trumps” are their REAL suit.
If no REAL suit has yet been bid, e.g an artificial strong 2 opening, 2♣ - 4♣, then ♣s are “Trumps”, or 1NT - 2♦ (transfer) - 4 ♣, then, ♥s are the inferred “Trumps”.
When a 2-suiter 5/5 overcall has been made and the” trumps” have not been decided, assume the higher suit (usually a major) to be trumps when using Finch Cinch.

[Zelandakh]

Sounds like you just "invented" RKCG - congratulations. Now you just need to switch the 4♦ and 4♥ responses and solve the cue bid issue on hands with a clear trump suit and the problem of hands where 4♣ is needed naturally. Good luck with that - as a tip, a little work was put into this a couple of years back (by benlessard I think) so you might try searching for that before publishing v2.0.

[johnu]

Do I have to pay royalties if I adopt this convention?

[nullve]

viaduct, on 2015-December-01, 12:59, said:

King Bidding:-

‘Next Bid up’ with 0 (or 3) of the other 3 Kings (“trump” King already accounted for);
2 bids up with either the Lowest, OR (the Middle and Highest of the other 3 Kings);
3 bids up with either the Middle, OR (the Lowest and Highest of the other 3 Kings);
4 bids up with either the Highest, OR (the Lowest and Middle of the other 3 Kings).

“Kings” can be shown in 3 ways; replying to a “Kings” NEXT ”Non-Trump” bid up; with 2 Keycards + Queen of Trumps, or, affirming possession of the Trump Queen.

The beauty is, if for example ♥s are trumps, and your partner replies showing they have either the highest King (K♠) only, OR, they have both the lowest and the middle 2 Kings (K♣ and K♦) of the 3 remaining (K♥ excluded); then if you have the K♠ then they must have both the K♣ and K♦, OR, if you’ve either the K♣ or K♦, then they've got the K♠ only (neither K♣ nor K♦).

I, for one, think this is an interesting idea. But then I happen to think the kind of encoding that forces a player to look at his own hand for successful decoding, is much underused in bridge, despite being at the heart of conventions such as

* Blackwood
* Turbo
* two-way doubles
* Major Flash
* 3rd/5th leads

[viaduct]

Just 3 cents for every Grand Slam, 2 cents for every Small Slam and 1 cent for every time you can stop in 4♥ or 4♠, instead of bidding 5 and going 1 down!
Please also see new discussion FINCH CLINCH, which purely as an additional option, safely allows the inclusion of voids in the Finch Cinch bidding system.

[viaduct]

johnu, on 2015-December-11, 06:54, said:

Do I have to pay royalties if I adopt this convention?

Just 3 cents for every Grand Slam, 2 cents for every Small Slam and 1 cent for every time you can stop in 4♥ or 4♠, instead of bidding 5 and going 1 down!
Please also see new discussion FINCH CLINCH, which purely as an additional option, safely allows the inclusion of voids in the Finch Cinch bidding system.

[johnu]

LOL's have been using 4♣ as Gerber in just about every possible auction since Gerber was invented. 4♣ as key card Gerber has been around for as long as I can remember. Barry Rigal recently had an article in the March, 2015 ACBL bulletin suggesting using 4♣ as key card Gerber over partner's preempts.