[inquiry]

Scoring: MP

BPO-006D

W --- N ---- E ---- S
(1♦)   3♠  (Pass)    ?

West opened 1♦ and your partner overcalls 3♠.

---

This hand is open for discussion.

[hrothgar]

BPO-006D: Pass

What do we expect from a White on Red preempt, where RHO couldn't show values via a negative double? Me, I expect that AQ of Diamonds is sitting over my King along with another couple losers. LHO is also almost certainly sitting on the KQ of club and should be able to find the most damaging lead.

I'm passing. I expect partner to make 3S on the nose, losing two Diamonds, a Spade, and a Club. The only other bid that appeals to me is 3NT. If partner has the right Spade suit - AQJxxx is enough – we might easily make 3NT. Given the vulnerability, it seems too risky to pray that partner has a perfect suit. Note, for example, that AKTxxx is MUCH worse for our purposes...

[han]

Even if partner has as much as KQJ-7th of spades we are likely to make only 9 tricks. My partners never have that much at these colors.

[Blofeld]

I pass.

I don't think my ♦K is worth an awful lot, so I probably have around three tricks for partner. Do I really expect him to have seven tricks for his favourable jump to 3♠?

[han]

Blofeld, partner might have 3 diamonds...

[Blofeld]

Erm ... that is true.

But he might also have less than six tricks.

I expect to be in 3♠+1 occasionally, but I still want to pass.

[Winstonm]

Pass. Down 1. WTP?

[pigpenz]

pass, at matchpoints you can win more by underbidding according Marshal Miles...not imps so dont need to take out any insurance

[HeartA]

Am I the only one to vote for 4♠?

[inquiry]

HeartA, on Oct 7 2005, 02:40 PM, said:

Am I the only one to vote for 4♠?

You will not be the only person.

[cherdano]

Hannie, on Oct 7 2005, 06:05 PM, said:

Even if partner has as much as KQJ-7th of spades we are likely to make only 9 tricks. My partners never have that much at these colors.

Hmm, for one thing you always seem to be against dropping the upper requirement for preempts at these colors, so if you partner follows suit, he may also have more. For another thing, if partner has KQJ-7th of spade, 4♦ should make. And I learned recently that it is very bad not to bid 4♠ now but do so in the next round.

[mikeh]

I think I voted for 4♠, but I would accept pass as the most reasonable alternative. I voted for 4♠ because I hate laying down this kind of dummy, seeing partner wrap up 10 tricks, and all three players at the table think of me as a wuss.

Sometimes partner actually has a decent overcall. One of my partners claimed that he once bid 3♠ with AQxxxxx and found that the opening bidder had the ♠K. Another is rumoured to have held KQJxxxx Qx xx xx and to have risked a 3♠ overcall.

I play too much imps I suppose, but I once read that game bonuses count even at matchpoints.

Of course, -50 in 4♠ is not going to be fun either.

If the choice were clear, this would not have been posted.

3N is a pig-bid....the kind of bid you should reserve for the discussion in the pub after the game: 'you know, on that board, I really wanted to bid 3N'

[han]

Hmm, for one thing you always seem to be against dropping the upper requirement for preempts at these colors, so if you partner follows suit, he may also have more.

Ouch, forgot that there actually is somebody who reads my posts. Oh well, bridge makes me look foolish so often that I'm immune to it now . There was this recent hand where I advocated a jump to 4H at these colors with a very good hand. Of course, when you jump to 4H you are unlikely to miss game. A jump to the 3-level is different.

For another thing, if partner has KQJ-7th of spade, 4♦ should make. And I learned recently that it is very bad not to bid 4♠ now but do so in the next round.

Yes, I considered that. Opener is short in spades and therefore fairly likely to reopen. This is a very good argument for bidding 4♠ now, I hate doing it later.

I admit that my initial response was a bit simplistic. I do not think that this problem is easy at all.

[Winstonm]

mikeh, on Oct 7 2005, 02:01 PM, said:

I think I voted for 4♠, but I would accept pass as the most reasonable alternative. I voted for 4♠ because I hate laying down this kind of dummy, seeing partner wrap up 10 tricks, and all three players at the table think of me as a wuss.

Sometimes partner actually has a decent overcall. One of my partners claimed that he once bid 3♠ with AQxxxxx and found that the opening bidder had the ♠K.  Another is rumoured to have held KQJxxxx Qx xx xx and to have risked a 3♠ overcall.

I play too much imps I suppose, but I once read that game bonuses count even at matchpoints.

Of course, -50 in 4♠ is not going to be fun either.

If the choice were clear, this would not have been posted.

3N is a pig-bid....the kind of bid you should reserve for the discussion in the pub after the game: 'you know, on that board, I really wanted to bid 3N'

Mike, you are bring good points to all the discussions so how about your views on this?

My personal belief is that the reason the Blue Team dominated for so many years lay in their ability to self discipline and to not deviate from system - perhaps encouraged greatly by their captain. Doesn't competetive bidding really boil down to agreements and discipline?

If, NV vs Vul, I have agreed that QJ10xxxx, x, Kxx, , xx qualifies as a preempt, how can I then hold AQxxxxx, x, Qxx, xx and make the same bid - who are we trying to pressure, the opponents or ourselves?

Tactical bids, in my view, are overrated. Partnership and team has to supercede the "gunslinger" mentality.

From what I have observed, at green verses red most players use an approximate "within 4 of the contract" concept instead of the old rules of 2 and 3.
If my partner is in discipline with this idea, his 3 spade bid should show a hand that would capture 5 tricks in spades if I held a balanced crapola - the diamond K may or may not be a trick, but that is only the difference between making and down 1 anyway. If partner has a hand that will produce game opposite this hand, he has broken discipline with his preempt and if it continues we will always be guessing.

The 3S bid has already stolen room, my hand is unknown, so the preemept has accomplished its objective - even knowing our preemptive agreements does not make it much easier on them to find the right contract; however, if partner can be too good to preempt, it is our side rather than their side who takes the brunt of the blow because no one is good enough to guess 100% of the time what hand partner holds.

Winston

[mikeh]

Despite my claims to vast age, the Blue Team had ended its reign by the time I began to play, but I have read and re-read all of the Bridge Worlds from those days, including Moyse's pungent articles on why American teams fared so poorly.

There were, it seems to me, several reasons.

1. For many years, the US team was chosen by having a pairs event: imp pairs, I think, but pairs, not teams. Any experienced player knows that imp pairs is not the same as an extended team match against one skilled opponent.

2. This method created teams with no chemistry and no cohesion. While three expert pairs, playing as pairs, ought to be able to play without being influenced by who their partners are, in the real world it doesn't seem to work like that. In team play, sometimes the team is more than the sum of its parts, and sometimes less.

3. Almost all of the top US pairs in the late 50' and through the 60's played far more mps than imps. Regionals, the main arena of US tournament bridge, had far fewer imp events than they do these days, and I think that the same was true of the nationals

4. Methods: this still handicaps some US teams to this date. The top teams now often use coaching, but I remember reading an article about the Rhodes Olympiad (I think it was the Olympiad) in 1996... the US team apparently spent little time preparing for the methods used by the opps, and was comprised of players (excellent players) inexperienced in the international arena. They got clobbered. The US teams playing against the Blue team played fundamentally flawed methods. They had some of the best players ever to play the game including Howard Schenken, considered by many of his peers to the best player of all time. But their methods stank. Moyse would often compare slam bidding statistics, and the Italians were far more effective.

5. Discipline: Moyse used to delight in counting the imps lost by the despised weak two or weak jump overcall (despised by him, that is) and it is true that the US team lost consistently. They had NO discipline: a modern player would shudder at the wide range of hands and of course they had few if any means of enquiring about the bidder's hand. But bye and large, discipline did not seem to be a huge factor. The Italians had their share of unusual actions.

6. Experience : part of this is the team approach. I have had limited international experience (4 Rosenblums and 1 bermuda bowl appearance) but I know that it took me a number of years to become competitive at the Canadian Nationals. Part of that was gradually getting onto better teams with better partners, but there was certainly an element of learning how to win. In my first 8 appearances at the national final, I never made the playoffs. In my last 6, I have never missed the playoffs, playing with 3 different partners on several different teams. The Italians, by playing as a relatively steady unit, with only gradual personnel changes, always came to the tournaments with a core of players who expected to win at that level and HAD WON. The US, on the other hand (as with all other countries) was continually being represented by an ever-changing group, few of whom had won at that level. There is a very real advantage to sitting down with the assurance that comes from having won at whatever level you are playing at.

I am sure that further reflection would cause me to expand upon this list, and I would be interested in Fred's p.o.v.: he has far more knowledge of what it takes to win than I do and he comes from the same Canadian context.

As for wide ranging preempts: of course partner will, I hope, bid 3♠ over 1♦, white v red with QJ9xxxx xxx x xx. But does that mean he must bid 1 or 4♠ with KQJxxxx Qx xx xx? Or AQxxxxx xxx x xx?

Wide ranging preempts are three-edged swords: there are 2 opps they can cut and one partner.

The fact that we hold xxx in ♠ and that we can (I think) assume that partner holds 70% of the outstanding ♠ gives us some reason to expect that he holds a decent suit. An assurance of that? No, not at all.

Did I bid 4♠ expecting a good suit? No. I bid it hoping for a good suit or another layout that would give me a play" KQxxxxx xx xxx x

My judgement, based on my experience, is that 4♠ is, by a slight margin, the correct bid. Your judgement, based on your experience, may point to a pass. I do not believe that this is a problem susceptible to precise analysis. Even simulations will not answer the issue. I expect (and I have not run the simulation) that the outcomes would be so closely balanced that minor changes in initial constraints could tip the balance either way, and we would expect to have such minor differences in decisions such as: was this a 1♦ opener for LHO? (Does LHO open 1♦ with 4=4 in minors, or 4=5? Does LHO open 1♦ with a stiff ♠ honour and 16 hcp or does he open 1N?) Just how weak can partner be? How strong? How weak would RHO need to be to pass... I bet it is possible to construct hands on which some RHO's would have a non-pass over a minimum 3♠ overcall. And so on

[Walddk]

Excellent points Mike. Whether you should pass or raise is a matter of partnership style and in my opinion the least interesting problem in this set of many very good ones.

Who is my partner on this deal? If I don't know, it's pure guessing.

Roland

[mike777]

Pass

At fav let's give partner a break. If she is bidding 3s with a 7 loser hand and I am an unpassed hand, give me a break! .

[Winstonm]

[QUOTE]As for wide ranging preempts: of course partner will, I hope, bid 3♠ over 1♦, white v red with QJ9xxxx xxx x xx. But does that mean he must bid 1 or 4♠ with KQJxxxx Qx xx xx? Or AQxxxxx xxx x xx?

No. Pass is also possible. Passing and bidding would show a hand that for some reason did not qualify for an immediate preempt in your agreements. This I believe is the heart of discipline - to resist the Gunslinger/Hero call in favor of the partnership agreements. There will be many more hands played with partner than against these opponents so the long range goal of eliminating doubt in partner's mind seems more important than the result on one particular hand.

There are arguments and hands that will prove the validity of using preempts as destructive weapons or constructive devices - I seem to remember that in one of the Italian's early systems a 3C opening showed a solid 7-card club suit. The one thing a bid cannot do is be both depending on the whim of the bidder.

Although there are two opponents to fool, but you and partner are the ones who miss game when you have too much for your bid or get overboard when you have too little....so who ends up looking the fool?

Another way to look at this is that you are on the last board of a 96 board match and it's all tied up....would you want partner to try to determine the outcome of all the other 5 player's investement of time and energy and effort by violating the partnership's agreements by making a gunslinger preempt because he has two oppenents to fool. He may have two opponents, but he has five teammates to whom to he must explain.

Winston

[luke warm]

006D - pass... the way i like to play, the 3S bid needs 3 cover cards to make... i'll go to 4 if i have to, but my diamond king might be dead