[PhantomSac]

 MrAce, on 2015-May-03, 23:29, said:

What would you bid over 1 NT by pd and 2♥ on your right on your 2nd call?

If they overcalled 2H I would bid 4S, if they passed I would bid 3S (which seems like an underbid but we have about 5 things to cover so it's likely if partner covers 2 of them he will bid game. Ofc the CKT and 2 small spades and out won't, but that is inconsistent with the opps passing throughout so I wouldn't be too worried about it).

After a 2H overcall there is significant value in just bidding 4S as LHO may have a problem with a good heart fit and a reasonable hand obv.

[karlson]

 PhantomSac, on 2015-May-03, 23:53, said:

our hand is so good that partner is not very likely to rip them

This is a great point that I hadn't thought much about.

[MrAce]

 karlson, on 2015-May-03, 22:08, said:

Wow, that's pretty shocking actually. I thought it was a normal 4♠.

No disrespect to Justin or anyone but I still think it is.

Not that I don't like 1♠. But if I am playing a style ArtK78 plays, which says opening 1♠ and then bidding 4♠ "shows a strong hand and not just a distributional strong hand, but a strong hand." then I do not even have a choice other than opening 4♠. Opening 1♠ and rebidding 2♠ is simply out of question for me with this 7-4. AKJT9xx +QJxx

 PhantomSac, on 2015-May-03, 23:55, said:

If they overcalled 2H I would bid 4S, if they passed I would bid 3S (which seems like an underbid but we have about 5 things to cover so it's likely if partner covers 2 of them he will bid game. Ofc the CKT and 2 small spades and out won't, but that is inconsistent with the opps passing throughout so I wouldn't be too worried about it).

After a 2H overcall there is significant value in just bidding 4S as LHO may have a problem with a good heart fit and a reasonable hand obv.

Thanks. What is +EV and -EV. btw?

[gwnn]

Expectation value. +EV are stuff that rate to win imps (or whatever) against alternatives in the long run.

[gnasher]

If I opened 4♠ and the opponents competed to the five-level, I'd make an action double. I have more offence than I might have, and quite a lot more defence. Of course, that has its downsides too, but at least it improves the chances of punishing them when they're wrong.

[aguahombre]

 gnasher, on 2015-May-04, 02:13, said:

If I opened 4♠ and the opponents competed to the five-level, I'd make an action double. I have more offence than I might have, and quite a lot more defence. Of course, that has its downsides too, but at least it improves the chances of punishing them when they're wrong.

This is interesting. I don't believe I have ever considered what to do on future rounds to show that my earlier bidding conveyed neither the expected offense nor the expected defense.

[PhantomSac]

Opening 4S then doubling with this hand type is a matter of agreement.

I would not open 4S so 4S then X would not mean that for me. A big problem I have is that there are many handtypes people would open 4S with then X and say "it means I have this hand." (And obviously for the record, I'm not saying gnasher does this).

Like for me, I'm pretty purist, I don't open 4S with opening hands so 4S then X in direct seat means "I have extra offense for my 4S). Because to me, 4S is not limited in offense, I would open 4S with 11 solid spades for instance, so I have unlimited offense, but I won't have AKQJTx Axx x Axx which is lots of defense. I might overcall 4S or bid 4S opp a PH with that hand type (ok, a little weaker), where X says "I opened 4S to make", but to me I would not do that opp an UPH. You also want to X with 8 solid --- Qxx xx on 4S p p 5H; IF IT MEANS THAT. To me that's what it means so it's incompatible with this hand. If you can open 4S with this hand I am fine with X meaning this but its still a crapshoot, partner doesn't know how they fit, you don't have much defense, you don't really have that much offense (depending on fit). It might work out well, but I'd prefer to open 1S myself. That gives a more accurate meaning to 4S then X also.

That said, again I sound like a curmudgeon not wanting to do anything high variance, but anyone who knows my style knows thats not really my fear or approach to the game. But with this exact hand I really don't like it, and even if X means this then you're losing something.

[akwoo]

 aguahombre, on 2015-May-03, 23:21, said:

I am nowhere near Justin's league, but I am sure he would be grateful to have opponents who would open 4s here. My partner is not in that league, either; but, I would rather have her across from me as a partner than as a CHO I have created with a 4S bid.

I'm sure Justin would be grateful to have me as an opponent period, whether I am opening 4s or not.

As for my partner, he should know without discussion that 4s on this hand is pretty mild compared with the other swings I'd be taking against Justin. In fact, he should be glad I didn't force him to switch to EHAA for the match.

[benlessard]

My view is that opponents vul is highly important in these matters. If they are NV its probably a no brainer to open 4S. If they are vul the odds of them bidding to the 5 level is greatly reduced. I also find that having 2 singleton is tricky for the defensive potential POV. It look like a borderline call to me and I would be surprised if one call is significantly better than the other on the long run.

[aguahombre]

I often wonder: If something is a no-brainer, is it a good thing to do or a bad thing to do?

[rhm]

 PhantomSac, on 2015-May-03, 23:53, said:

Almost all of the thread seems to agree with you so it is more likely I'm wrong. BBF is a biased sample in these issues though, but it is pretty overwhelming.

I would be pretty surprised if many top players opened 4S though, not that that makes it wrong (and awm in particular has posted that many more strong hands should be opened 4S iirc, and the pavlicek thing that says of hands that people on vugraph opens 1M or 4M, 4M is a big winner).

Just seems super gambley with such a good hand that includes "THE BOSS SUIT." I am on board with opening 4M w/r with tons of weak hands in first seat (like any 7-4, any 7321 with a good suit), but I don't like it with good hands that don't need that much for slam. Obviously saying "thirteen points" is unreasonable since stiff Q is not worth much, but stiff Q does make it a worse 4S bid for many reasons imo.

4S puts pressure on them but it will be hard to punish them when they're wrong, our hand is so good that partner is not very likely to rip them. And it's not so good that 4S X AP is a great scenario (like if we had 9 solid spades and out or something like that). We have some good defense vs 4H/3N, and we have a good hand for slam that we will obviously miss a lot with 4S, I really don't like the added pressure with a hand like this with so many downsides.

I guess if it was a BBF field I would dislike this action a lot less from my teammate, but in a normal field I think very few people open 4S and it is a totally random action (which is ok with big +EV but tbh I find it -EV even in a vacuum) so I wouldn't really like to deal with the swings of that.

I am sure you are not a curmudgeon, but I believe you are wrong even for expert circles.
If there would be no counter arguments to 4♠ the issue would not have been raised.
I am not of the school, which says "preempts work" , I lean more towards Rosenberg's view "preempts sometimes work."

But look at examples from

http://www.rpbridge.net/9x15.htm

and Pavlicek's observation: "Evidence clearly favors the preempt, though available data is limited."

The conservative way you treat the boss suit makes it unlikely that the other room would open 1♠ when you would bid 4♠, so your spade preempts would not show up in Pavlicek's statistics.
However, your partner may be in a more comfortable position when you do open 4♠ than when your more aggressive counterpart does the same on the same hand in the other room.
Again this does not show up in Pavlicek's data.

Whether to open this hand with 4♠ boils down to judgement, whether in the long run you are likely to gain more and more often than you would loose.
It is like any other judgement call you have to choose. That is Bridge.
It has nothing to do with gambling or recklessness or swinging.
Some tolerance to different views seems indicated.

Rainer Herrmann

[PhilKing]

It's probably time for another MEGAQUIZ.

[KurtGodel]

 PhilKing, on 2015-May-05, 04:28, said:

It's probably time for another MEGAQUIZ.

Agreed.

[PhantomSac]

 rhm, on 2015-May-05, 04:05, said:

I am sure you are not a curmudgeon, but I believe you are wrong even for expert circles.
If there would be no counter arguments to 4♠ the issue would not have been raised.
I am not of the school, which says "preempts work" , I lean more towards Rosenberg's view "preempts sometimes work."

But look at examples from

http://www.rpbridge.net/9x15.htm

and Pavlicek's observation: "Evidence clearly favors the preempt, though available data is limited."

The conservative way you treat the boss suit makes it unlikely that the other room would open 1♠ when you would bid 4♠, so your spade preempts would not show up in Pavlicek's statistics.
However, your partner may be in a more comfortable position when you do open 4♠ than when your more aggressive counterpart does the same on the same hand in the other room.
Again this does not show up in Pavlicek's data.

Whether to open this hand with 4♠ boils down to judgement, whether in the long run you are likely to gain more and more often than you would loose.
It is like any other judgement call you have to choose. That is Bridge.
It has nothing to do with gambling or recklessness or swinging.
Some tolerance to different views seems indicated.

Rainer Herrmann

I feel like I have made this exact post but some flaws with this are:

They include opening 4S in 3rd and 4th seat. I do not mind opening 4S with good hands in third seat, that is a totally different scenario. Like this hand for instance I would obviously open 4S in third seat, I am not worried about missing a slam.

If you eliminate hands opened in 3rd or 4th seat where it made a difference I see hands 5, 12, 24, 25, 27, and 41, you are eliminating 14 imps where 4S opening worked better.

You also have hands like hand 6, maybe you think this is a cherry picked example but that is not representative of real life top competition. (one guy doubled 4S with Q98x AQTx ATxx x, and the other guy bid 5C over it with J Jxxxx xx AKxxx, at the other table one guy opened 1S and rebid 2S with AKTxxxx x KJ9x x. His opponents then came in to the auction and bid to 4H and he now bid 4S..., lose 16 for those guys). Since this set of boards had a 4S opening being +26 imps vs 1S, color me unconvinced that this data shows that opening 4S with good hands and 13 HCP is a good idea in first seat.

Also, you cannot really trust the BBO vugraph records, if you watch vugraph you will note that when they don't get the auction because the table went down or they didn't see it, they just make the opening bid the final contract.

[Aardv]

You have to be careful with the conclusions you draw from comparing results from different choices of opening bid.

Suppose you do some research on results after a non-vulnerable 1NT opening on balanced hands, compared with opening one of a suit. You find that opening 1NT in the range 10-12 results in a net gain. Also opening in the range 12-14. And in the range 15-17. (I don't know whether this is true.)

Do you therefore decide to play a 10-17 1NT opening non-vulnerable?

[lmilne]

I too am surprised by the near unanimity of opening 4♠ on this hand. In the circle of players I talk with/play with, most would not consider 4♠ an option, because we don't pre-empt with opening values.

I am interested in the Pavlicek data, but like Justin, I worry about the analysis and would want to clean the data some more before running the numbers. 3rd/4th seat openings are not even in the same ballpark.

Also, I agree that double after opening 4♠ does not show this hand, or a different hand with defence. For my partnerships, these hands are opened at the 1-level. Double shows a desire to bid 5♠, i.e. "unexpected extra offense".

Double after making a pre-empt facing a passed hand is different, showing "unexpected extra values" - convertible values that are useful on defence or offence.

[dboxley]

 aguahombre, on 2015-May-05, 00:31, said:

I often wonder: If something is a no-brainer, is it a good thing to do or a bad thing to do?

I think it depends on the person calling it a no-brainer.