[kgr]

Scoring: IMP

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Bidding starting with North:
2H-(DBL)-Pass-(4S)-All Pass
How do you rate 2H, 3H and Pass on the North hand?
Preempts seem to work against not-experts. Would you bid 2H or 3H against real experts or World class players?
My concern is that I play mostly against weaker players - and this does not mean that I'm good - and that I take bad habits because of this. Like preempt, overcall, ...light. (Here opps were advanced and they really were).

[csdenmark]

kgr, on Mar 4 2006, 02:50 PM, said:

Dealer: North Vul: E/W Scoring: IMP

♠ Q ♥ J975432 ♦ 3 ♣ J632 ♠ AJ9643 ♥ KQ8 ♦ T74 ♣ 7 ♠ K75 ♥ AT ♦ AJ985 ♣ AK8 ♠ T82 ♥ 6 ♦ KQ62 ♣ QT954

Bidding starting with North:
2H-(DBL)-Pass-(4S)-All Pass
How do you rate 2H, 3H and Pass on the North hand?
Preempts seem to work against not-experts. Would you bid 2H or 3H against real experts or World class players?
My concern is that I play mostly against weaker players - and this does not mean that I'm good - and that I take bad habits because of this. Like preempt, overcall, ...light. (Here opps were advanced and they really were).

40 B. Concealed Partnership Understandings Prohibited
Not so difficult I think. If they are advanced they apply to above rule and then you know. If they don't apply wise of you to leave the table.

[kgr]

csdenmark, on Mar 4 2006, 03:22 PM, said:

40 B. Concealed Partnership Understandings Prohibited
Not so difficult I think. If they are advanced they apply to above rule and then you know. If they don't apply wise of you to leave the table.

I don't understand this remark. Let me clarify:
- I did open 2H
- This was on BBO with a pickup partner, so no Concealed Partnership Understandings I would think.

[csdenmark]

kgr, on Mar 4 2006, 03:37 PM, said:

csdenmark, on Mar 4 2006, 03:22 PM, said:

40 B. Concealed Partnership Understandings Prohibited
Not so difficult I think. If they are advanced they apply to above rule and then you know. If they don't apply wise of you to leave the table.

I don't understand this remark. Let me clarify:
- I did open 2H
- This was on BBO with a pickup partner, so no Concealed Partnership Understandings I would think.

Sorry I misunderstood you. But in fact still the same argument. Then instead for you to inform and apply to the rules. If you think you have problems to inform your opps. correct - then your partnership has a serious problem. Such is standard for pick-up partnerships.

What was your alert-information or your info on your convention card?

Personally I play no system allowing me to bid undisciplined preempts below 3♣ and most systems requires higher preempts for undisciplined.

NB! In pass-systems there are a weak opening. Normally 1♦ for 0-7HcP, ANY. For Moscito it is 1♥

In Nusine Club your hand can be opened 2♠ as weak preempt in any suit.
0-5HcP(non-VULN) or 3-8HcP(VULN). That is a brown-sticker feature.

[pbleighton]

2H, 3H, and pass are all reasonable. It depends on your agreements and style.

That said, unless I had a partner who had specifically requested disciplined preempts, I would bid:
3H in the first seat not vulnerable, or in the third seat at any vulnerability except unfavorable.
2H unfavorable in the third seat
I would pass in the second seat or in the first when vulnerable.

I don't vary my preempting style by quality of opponents. Better opps bid better against preempts - they also bid and play better in general.

Peter

[Free]

matter of style and agreements (if there are any). With most partners I'd open 3♥ since they know at this vulnerability I might have a 5 card only, so p will be glad that I had 7

[luis]

3♥ is fine, 2♥ is shy, pass is horrible

Luis

[han]

I also prefer 3H, partner won't be surprised at these colors.

Preempts work against strong players as well as weak players.

[inquiry]

Pass would be shy
2♥ - is not right with this hand. Partner will expect more
3♥ at these colors seems just right. If opp were vul, maybe even 4♥

[joshs]

This is very much a style thing.

Some players demand good suits for pre-empts (partnership confidence is important). Playing with such a player I might pass.

Some players require a constructive hand with good playing strength (just less in high cards than an opening bid) for pre-empts. playing with such a player, I might try only 2H, but would probably gamble 3H anyway, and just apologize prosusly if things went wrong. Some players play that 2H is constructive but 3H isn't, well then you are back to an easy 3H bid.

Personally, I think the money bid, by far, at these colors is 3H and thats not only because it eats up a lot of space, but also because it makes it more likely that LHO will x and less likely that he will overcall. If he x's you are probably on lead, which is good. If he overcalls, partner is probably on lead, and thats bad.

Also over 3M the 3N bid is really wide ranging. It can be a balanced 15 count. It can be a balanced 21 count. it can be a long minor and a 14 count, or a 20 count. It covers a lot of ground, and not even the most experienced partnerships can deal with this all that effectively.

There was a hand from the team trials where you had to face the following auction:
(3S)-3N-(4S)
Holding - KJxxx AJTxx Axx

What do you bid? Fred Gitelman, for instance, got this hand very wrong (but did make up for it in the play!). And its a tough hand. So if anything, I would be more likely to make an agressive pre-empt vs experts (before they have exchanged information) than vs the average flight B player. The experts were going to get the hand right without the pre-empt much of the time, the flight B player wasn't. Hence you have more to gain pre-empting vs the expert. I don't really change my style much as a function of the opps, but if you do, you really should pre-empt more vs good players than vs bad players.

There is a motto, which says "pre-empts work". don't be discouraged if you sometimes guess wrong over them, and use them yourselves as much as you can, as long as you have some reasonably safety given the vulnerability.

In general, extra shape (like a side 4 card suit) should encourage you to bid more than you might normally bid. If you actually had a good suit like KQT9xxx and 7-4 shape, i would have opened 4H at these colors. With the actually hand I would open 3H, hope is causes the opponents troubles, and if not hope that partner can take a joke.


P.S. This opinion is coming from a very conservative player who was reared on constructive bidding but who hates to pass when he holds a long suit...