[asdfg2k]

Scoring: IMP

(1S)-p-(2C) to you

---

State of the match is that this is the 8th hand of a 12 hand match and things seem pretty even up 'till now. You are on a pretty darn good team, but you are facing the top seed so they are pretty darn good, too.

[luke warm]

pass

[han]

George, please tell me that you didn't bid with this hand....

[inquiry]

he did... team won 11 imps on it i think

[asdfg2k]

Let's get a few more responses before I admit whether I bid or not. Then I'll also defend the strategy, if need be.

[Blofeld]

I suspect I would double.

Definitely prefer pass to any other action.

[hotShot]

It seems right to pass(first choice), but there are tactical considerations to bid 2♥(2nd choice) or double (3rd choice).
1) I need a swing.
2) opps are very likely to have game or more, they might not be able to penalty double at that level or they may fear that our side can somehow generate 6 tricks. So they are likely to bid on.
3) Bidding now can disturb opps bidding and game plan.
4) If they are on game/slam course, it might be important to give partner a clue what to lead or how to defend (if i show my distribution with double).

[foo]

=If= I am bidding, I'm doing it to jam the auction and "get in their face" and I know it.

So =if= if bid in Their 2/1 auction with this cheese whiz (it is not good enough to be real cheese...) I'm bidding a Sandwich NT showing 55 in the unbids to rob Them of as much space as possible in one bid.

...and whether it works or not, I am not claiming this was Bridge. This is operating and masterminding, pure and simple.

...if it =doesn't= work out well, I don't even try to defend myself during the post. I just buy alcohol and/or buy dinner and/or whatever until pard accepts my apology.

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

2NT.

If you bid, then 2NT seems clear, at least
you dont promise anything except shape.

We all would love to be green vs. red, but
equal vul. is ok as well.

It would help to know, if 2C was already forcing
to game, because if not, ... you may test if they
are in sync regarding their forcing pass agreement.

With kind regards
Marlowe

PS: It is more important to be consistent, if you always
go in, you should do it now as well, if you dont go in
this time, dont do it the next time, keep a list and decide
after a while, what works best for you.

[luis]

Pass but I would bid 2NT with QJTxx of hearts instead of AJxxx


Luis

[foo]

P_Marlowe, on May 6 2006, 08:24 AM, said:

PS: It is more important to be consistent, if you always
go in, you should do it now as well, if you dont go in
this time, dont do it the next time, keep a list and decide
after a while, what works best for you.

I like this advice, but would tweak it slightly replacing "you" with "your partnership".

IMHO Partnership Harmony is more important than the result on any one board, so partners have to agree to play a style acceptable to both players.

[asdfg2k]

As Luis indicates, I was actually worred about being too strong for the bid, not about being too weak. It was my understanding, and this is why I posted, that when the opps start with (1M)-p-(2C) and are playing 2/1, that they have an enormous advantage. This is the one auction that 2/1 was built for. They can take their time (the single most important part of the 2/1 system) and therefore can ferret out the precise spot that is the limit of the hand.

I am familiar with this conclusion because I've played 2/1 as my primary system for decades.

Stated another way, in that particular bidding sequence, if you have anything that remotely resembles a pre-emptive hand, you have one chance to take away their advantage.

I'm not interested in whether we won imps or lost them on the hand in question.

I'm interested in whether the risk, in that position, is worth it. I don't really consider it masterminding, although since pass is clearly a logical alternative, if the bid doesn't work out well, all negative results are certainly to be owned up to (as an aside, whether masterminding or not, when is this NOT the case? don't we own all of our actions? and don't we bid what we think will maximize our potential for success?)

Consistent with recognizing this is a pre-emptive actiion (partner has to realize that this bid is being made on shape, not strength, he heard the opps bidding as well), and consistent with my understanding that when deciding to preempt one should bid as high as one is willing to go the first time around, I thought that 2nt was a standout.

Yes, it worked out well. But it might not have.

Does anybody have the ability to run a simulation to see? My guess is that while I certainly would have rather been white against red, being white against white didn't change things too much. There is a part of me that says being red against red would tip the scales in favor of silence, but, again, that is a gut reaction - one that probably isn't justified.

I guess what I'm saying is that it is almost impossible for the opps to double on the three level, even if this is a misfit hand. Not completely impossible, of course, but difficult enough that it tips the balance in favor of action.

[asdfg2k]

P_Marlowe, on May 6 2006, 05:24 AM, said:

PS: It is more important to be consistent, if you always
go in, you should do it now as well, if you dont go in
this time, dont do it the next time, keep a list and decide
after a while, what works best for you.

While I certainly agree with the rest of what you wrote, this part I do not agree with. If one judges from the results so far that you are far ahead, this is a standout for pass. When playing what seems like a tight match against a strong team, however, the likelihood of winning imps by doing nothing doesn't seem to me to be winning strategy.

I'm not even sure that I'd go along with this if we could establish consistency of envioronment (strength of opps, state of the match, etc.). Why? Well, there have been a number of threads recently dealing with the fact that, on defense, it frequently pays to be something other than be consistent. That is, if you have the QJ of a suit, you play one or the other between 60% and 92% of the time. What you don't do is play the higher or the lower 100% of the time.

Shouldn't the same thing apply in this case?

That is, the most important thing you have going for you right after you have made your bid is the doubt that goes through the opps' minds about whether they have 12 or more tricks. I don't want them KNOWING anything about my bid. If this means that partner is similarly in the dark, that is fine with me, because having two of them confused trumps (pardon the expression) having partner confused. Partner's actions are more limited: to support (further the preempt) or not. The opps have a wide range of potential actions to consider. Confusion has to be an advantage for the preempting side.

In other words, if the opps ask about what the bid shows (specifically), I want our partnership to be able to answer something like: "It is intended as a preemptive action, so it is probably 5+-5+ in the unbid suits. However, we have discussed this sequence and we have specifically agreed that it doesn't PROMISE anything at all as to strength (HCP) or length. Your guess is as good as mine."

[mike777]

ok you got my interest peaked, how did bidding 2nt help win 11 imps? I assume opener could bid 3clubs with support, x with something extra in your suits and pass with junk(my usual 1s opening)?

[asdfg2k]

Well, as much as I would like to keep this discussion to the theoretical, I understand the desire to see the actual result.

So, I'll let you (and everybody else) in on what happened, and assume that we can get back to discussing the theoretical advantages and/or disadvantages after that.

On this particular hand, opener had two features that he wanted to show, but was unable to show both. He decided to show his 4 card club support (by bidding 3c) rather than his 6 card spade suit - KQJxxx (by bidding 3s). This turned out to be an unfortunate choice for him.

I was lucky enough to catch partner with 4-4 in the red suits and, in keeping with the principle of jumping as high as you are comfortable with at the first opportunity, he bid 4h directly over 3c.

Responder, not knowing about the 6 card spade suit, had his feet put to the proverbial fire by my partner's jump to 4h, and had to guess where to go from there. He wasn't comfortable just bidding 4S on his Ace doubleton in spades and six solid clubs, so he made a guess.

His guess didn't work out so well (he jumped to 6clubs - I might have done the same) and we won 11 imps in the process, as our partners bid to 4 spades (the last makeable spot).

But I don't really think that the result matters that much to the discussion.

Yes, the "operation" was a success.

But I'm more interested in a discussion of the importance of pre-empting when given a shot to do so on what appears, at first blush, to be a marginal opportunity at best, in the face of a 2/1 game forcing auction where it seems the opps may very well have 12 tricks.

[mike777]

Well it must always be right to make the top seed, pretty darn good team, make a guess, rather than rely on their tools and top class judgement. I can only ask why did they bother to just guess and not use tools or judgement, which is not the same thing as guessing.

On the other hand if guessing is the best the other team knows how to play how can it be right to bid on this deal? You should win on your teams natural ability alone. Again guessing is NOT the same thing as using one's experience and judgement.

[han]

How about these ideas:

1. The less information the opponents have exchanged, the more useful it is to preempt.

2. The more information the opponents have exchanged, the more dangerous is it to preempt.

A 2/1 auction is one of the most dangerous and least rewarding situations to preempt. I won't waste as many words on this hand as you did, I think 2NT is a bad and random bid that deserves to get a very bad score. But hey, you got a great score, so I won't complain, go Onagers!

[MickyB]

Agreed, Han.

Two more points -

An unusual 2NT is giving away a lot of information about your cards which may help the opponents in the bidding and the play. It may also help them work out what the other has.

Partner is going to have to take another call. This gives the opponents more options, increasing the danger and decreasing the preemption you have caused. If your aim is to preempt, partner should often be able to raise to the 4 level, and if this is your typical 2NT bid then he will not be able to. A NF 2♥ or 3♦ bid showing 5-5 in the reds rates to be much more effective on this particular hand. I think I prefer 2♥ natural to 2NT 2-suited.

This post has been edited by MickyB: 2006-May-06, 16:03

[asdfg2k]

If I had a 3D bid available showing 55 in the reds, I would have made it, that's for sure.

Han, at the point that I'm making my preempt, they don't know whether they have a fit or a double fit. That is, the partnership as a whole doesn't know. Sure, the opener knows they have a 9 card+ club fit, and responder knows they have a 7 card+ spade fit.

So I don't think they have exchanged that much information. In fact, the information they have exchanged is what I'm counting on them taking into account.

I'd love to see an analysis of final placement after 1M-p-2C without any intervention versus some intervention after that point. My guess is that many partnerships don't have much available to them other than control showing bids and that even the smallest amount of interference puts the partnership into unfamiliar territory.

Note that after my partner's 4h bid, ANY inquiry that takes the opps past 4S is too far. And how many would have the ability to stop at 4s holding:

Ax xx QJT AKQJxx

??

But, again, that is just specifics.

I think what I'm saying is exactlt the opposite of what Han supposes and that is that once the opps have communicated enough information to know that game is on, but not enough information to know that slam is either on or off, that is the perfect time to throw a monkey wrench (even a tiny one) into their theoretically well-oiled machine.

Perhaps a pass over 2NT should categorically show club support, but no first round controls of the opps suits. In that case, a pass by the 17 point hand above is the disciplined call, followed by a back in of 4S and then swish.

What does a pass of 2nt show?

[mike777]

At my int. level a pass of 2nt would show I opened on my typical junk and deny 3 clubs.

In any case I must say I am very surprised by the opp bidding 6clubs on that hand without a heart control, but that must be winning bridge at the top class level.
I would have considered: pass, x or 5clubs at my experience level.

I do note in response to your question that Larry Cohen has written he tends to double on any/all close hands because he is sick and tired of being pushed around by opp bidding on nothing.