Flannery

Author: Larry Cohen
Date of publish: 08/25/2012
Level: All Levels

This convention, devised by William Flannery, uses an opening bid of 2? to show:

11-15 HCP with 4? and 5? (there are slight variations, but this is the gist of it).

 

The purpose of the convention is to avoid the awkward rebid problem when opening 1? and also holding a 4-card spade suit. The idea is to get the spade suit in without fear of getting involved with a reverse auction. The downside is the loss of a 2? opening for other purposes (such as a weak-2 bid).

 

Personally, I'm not a fan of this convention, but it is popular with maybe 25-30% of the expert community using it.