[hutchau]

Scoring: IMP

---

[HeartA]

Though I like to open 1C with 5-5 or 6-6 blacks, I would open 1S with this hand. Spades was too strong vs. clubs, they can be treated as 6-5. And I would not open 1 weak 2 on this.

[pclayton]

4♠ at any color or form of scoring.

[P_Marlowe]

Pass.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[helene_t]

4♠. I need a good reason not to preempt in first seat. But even in second seat I would open 4♠ with this one.

[Winstonm]

Pass. I have a tremendous playing strength hand that won't get the spade suit shut out and I can limit my hand to start with a pass. If this hand were a heart/club two suiter I would view it as a much harder decision.

Winston

[Miron]

1♠. I don't see the reason for 4♠. Why to give up a slam, ♣AK should be enought...

[jdonn]

4♠. I pray for my opponents to do anything less with these hands.

[whereagles]

yeah 4♠ seems fine

[pbleighton]

1S. I open 4S more than most people, but here we can lose a good slam, if pd has good club support, or get into a bad one, if pd has lots of stuff in the reds.

Switch hearts and spades, and I might open 4H, but here, I can always bid 4S over their 4H.

Peter

[SoTired]

4S sounds right.

You will never get to "slow bid" this hand, so opening 1S is futile.

If you pass, you deserve to hear the bidding continue (1H) p (3S)

[inquiry]

I would like to open 3♣ (long story, I will not go there now), but his hand has too few controls. I most surely will not pass.

Generally with 5-5 or 6-6 I open the higher suit. The one exception is with the black suits, where I often open 1♣. Here the tremendous difference in the suit quality, however, forces me to open 1♠. 4♠ is a reasonable shot, but could easily miss slam.

[P_Marlowe]

SoTired, on Jun 23 2006, 08:02 AM, said:

<snip>
If you pass, you deserve to hear the bidding continue (1H) p (3S)
<snip>

So what?

At least your given seq. is easy: 4H Michaels Cue,
which sureley shows at least 6-5.

Of course, they may pass in 2nd seat and partner
may open.

I am not claiming pass works best / all the time,
but since I have decide long ago, to pass, if holding
a weak freakish 2-suiter, I will do it now as well,
sometimes it works sometimes not.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[whereagles]

It's very hard to get to slam here because it's difficult..

1) to know whether pard has the fillers we need
2) to give an accurate pic of our hand to pard

I think no amount of constructive bidding is going to extract that info, so 4♠ is the practical shot and most likely the long term winner.

[joker_gib]

whereagles, on Jun 23 2006, 02:22 PM, said:

It's very hard to get to slam here because it's difficult..

1) to know whether pard has the fillers we need
2) to give an accurate pic of our hand to pard

It is even more difficult if you don't introduce clubs !

Reason why I prefer to pass with this kind of hands, hoping to show both suits after.

The goal is not to know wether partner has the filler we need, the goal is to let partner know if he owns the good cards !

Alain

[han]

whereagles, on Jun 23 2006, 08:22 AM, said:

It's very hard to get to slam here because it's difficult.

I agree!

[sfbp]

I'm never buying the auction in clubs, so unless partner has a constructive or destructive raise in spades, I'm in trouble to make game.

3♠ for me.

I've had lots of luck opening wild hands like 7-5 in hearts and clubs with a 3-bid. Why shouldnt this extend to a bad 6-6? There's no reason to suppose that my spades are taking tricks in defence (yet), so I may as well tell the main point of my hand.

There are a lot of honour cards out there for partner to hold, and a lot of club losers. I'll gamble he has some of the former but not enough to help the latter.

If he's got nothing, I force the bad guys to start bidding at the 4-level. I sincerely doubt the auction will die. I might even make another bid (horror of horrors if partner shows some values).

I've seen highly successful 3-level preempts by others on a lot more than this. Not my style, but didn't someone say the secret to real 3-level preemption is to vary your bids fairly widely?

[P_Marlowe]

sfbp, on Jun 23 2006, 09:55 AM, said:

<snip>
I've seen highly successful 3-level preempts by others on a lot more than this. Not my style, but didn't someone say the secret to real 3-level preemption is to vary your bids fairly widely?
<snip>

certainly true, but I doubt that this was meant
for the dealer.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[whereagles]

joker_gib, on Jun 23 2006, 02:09 PM, said:

Reason why I prefer to pass with this kind of hands, hoping to show both suits after.

The goal is not to know wether partner has the filler we need, the goal is to let partner know if he owns the good cards !

I was claiming the two strategies you can follow (1. look for fillers in pard, or 2. show what you have and let pard make an educated guess) are both likely to fail.

You seem to favor strategy 2, but I really don't see whow pass 1st seat is going to help, even if you later on overcall something like 4NT.

[jdonn]

joker_gib, on Jun 23 2006, 09:09 AM, said:

whereagles, on Jun 23 2006, 02:22 PM, said:

It's very hard to get to slam here because it's difficult..

1) to know whether pard has the fillers we need
2) to give an accurate pic of our hand to pard

It is even more difficult if you don't introduce clubs !

Reason why I prefer to pass with this kind of hands, hoping to show both suits after.

The goal is not to know wether partner has the filler we need, the goal is to let partner know if he owns the good cards !

Alain

Lets say you pass, and it goes like 1♥ p 3♥, and ok you bid 4♥ showing spades and a minor. Partner doesn't know which is your minor so he still doesn't know what are 'good cards' or not, so the purported gain didn't even exist. Now that you bid 4♥ you are going to play 4♠ anyway the vast majority of the time, but you have accomplished two things along the way by not opening it to begin with:

1 - Now the opponents can double you for penalty, where before it was for takeout by current expert practice (of course the takeout double at this high level is usually left in anyway, but someone has to actually hold a takeout double to make one! Though this double used to be for penalty, times have changed and that is out the window.)

2 - You have let them find their heart fit, and LHO knows the strength range of RHO. He is extremely likely to do the right thing, whatever that is.