[Ant590]

Hi all,

The following hand came up yesterday in a teams of 4 match. It turns out several people I know have different views on when to double after they have preempted, so I thought I'd use this hand to see if there was a consensus on the forums.

---

Question 1:
I personally think 4♠ is normal here, but is it?

Question 2:
When a preempt is "meaty" (i.e. some defense), are we obliged to double next round to tell partner? This hand feels meaty, but is it a double?

Question 3:
If you pass, rather than double, partner bids 5♠, and then LHO wakes up, competes to 6♣. Do you pull?

[Fluffy]

I don't like 4♠. too much slam potential, and we have spades so we can always bid. 1♠ would be fine.

[billw55]

I think if 4♠ is agreed to show this hand type (intermediate values, good long suit) then no further action is necessary, and indeed would be ill advised: let partner judge. In my partnerships, it would be particularly insulting to remove west's double of 6♣.

[aguahombre]

Fluffy, on 2013-February-12, 07:58, said:

I don't like 4♠. too much slam potential, and we have spades so we can always bid. 1♠ would be fine.

Yes. We want our 4S to make partner and the opponents be the ones making the further decisions while we sit back and relax, and the given hand doesn't allow that.

billw55, on 2013-February-12, 08:09, said:

I think if 4♠ is agreed to show this hand type (intermediate values, good long suit) then no further action is necessary, and indeed would be ill advised: let partner judge. In my partnerships, it would be particularly insulting to remove west's double of 6♣.

Also, yes ---but only because your 4S shows the values of the OP hand. However, with those agreements, you might lose out when you are dealt a more traditional looking 4S overcall and have to do something else.

[billw55]

aguahombre, on 2013-February-12, 09:37, said:

Also, yes ---but only because your 4S shows the values of the OP hand. However, with those agreements, you might lose out when you are dealt a more traditional looking 4S overcall and have to do something else.

Right.

So the question is, how much should the "ceiling" of a preempt go up, when partner is a passed hand? I would agree, not this much. But how much? Make it, say,

♠AKT9xxx
♥xx
♦KJx
♣x

Clearly this is a 1♠ overcall (and opening bid) in second seat. But if partner has passed, does a preempt become possible, either as an overcall or opening bid? Where should the line be here?

[kenberg]

I'm fine with 4♠. We are vulnerable, partner will be playing me for some tricks. It's true that it keeps us from having a highly constructive auction but the opponents were probably going to prevent a careful development anyway.

Now we observe that partner passed 4♠ and, to my mind even more significantly, bid 5♠ over 5♣. Not 5♦, not 5♥, but 5♠. I can agree or disagree with the original 4♠, there are arguments both ways, but there is no way in hell that I am pulling the double.

[ggwhiz]

I understand the 4♠ bid in the context of pard being a passed hand but don't like it a bit.

Under other circumstances it's a 1♠ followed by 4♠ and if you follow that route here you can respect partners decision knowing it wasn't made in a complete fog. I would be more inclined to blast 4♠ on such a solid hand on the reverse colours to try to trap them

ps. Our style is such that my pard can still have some pretty decent 11 counts and that influences my choice.

[lmilne]

I don't see the rush to bid 4♠, and the problem you faced on the next round (having a heavy preempt but not enough defence to be confident of beating their contract) is a fairly common one after making a slightly unusual preempt. I would be a fan of 4♠ if I had something like AKT9xxx AJ QJxx where I am fairly confident of beating them (and happy to double next round).

[Siegmund]

re question 1, it depends a lot what your passed hand "preempts" look like. With at least some of my partners this would be a normal bid.

re question 2, people often use the 'extras' double after opening a weak two, but over a preempt it doesn't seem to be a common agreement. In fact the double to say 'I want to bid 5S but won't in case you have 5C set' is more common. (That too makes more sense when partner is a passed hand.) Perhaps if you play very wide-ranging bids in 3rd and 4th, like this one, you should indeed use double here to show strength.

Question 3 is the crystal-clear one: you wouldn't dream of pulling this double, unless you had 0 defensive tricks.

[kenberg]

Just to check: You have the hand labeled West, but the auction has E bidding 4♠. I am right that I am in fourth position, the auction starts with two passes and a 1♦ on my right, yes?

Give partner the ace of hearts, the ace of diamonds, the queen of spades and 6♠ still requires a little work, right? I suppose spade to the queen, finesse the heart, draw trump, cash the king of hearts, go to the board with the diamond ace, throw a diamond on the ace of hearts. 7+3+2=12, good enough. But it is asking a lot from a passed hand, no?

And if I overcall a spade, more often than not there will be a negative double on my left. partner is unlikely to have three spades so he may or may not have a bid, rho bids some number of clubs and now I bid 4♠. Is this really better? I'm not so sure.

The 4♠ is a pre-empt in the sense that it jumps to a high level contract but given that we are vulnerable and the opponents not, partner will be expecting me to have a hand with reasonable expectations of, with a little luck, making 4♠. Seems to me that's what I have. Bidding 4♠ right off seems to me to offer the best hope of being allowed to play 4♠, which I expect to like, and when the opponents compete further it seems to me I can just let partner do his best. It's asking too much to expect to be able to show this hand in detail or discover whether partner has the magic hand I need for slam. Better, I think, to simply announce that we can probably make 4♠, or close to it, assuming that my passed hand partner is not totally broke.


But yes, 4♠ could go wrong. maybe 6♠ is cold and we would have found it if I started with 1♠ or with a double. Maybe so, could be. I still bid 4♠.

[ggwhiz]

kenberg, on 2013-February-13, 07:59, said:

But yes, 4♠ could go wrong. maybe 6♠ is cold and we would have found it if I started with 1♠ or with a double. Maybe so, could be. I still bid 4♠.

This is quite a bit of hindsight here but on this vul especially I'm not so much looking for a magic slam as trying to set pard up for a good decision when they (not unexpectedly) bid to the 5 level.

ie. 5♣ passed back to me now what? as opposed to my bidding 1 followed by 4♠ on the way and when pard acts (or not).

An old quote from Kokish, Mr. Berg your basket is ready. Please bring all your eggs at your convenience.

[kenberg]

Whatever the right move is here, I like the quote.