[gingolia]

Scoring: IMP

West deals and pass to you (North).

---

[Free]

4♥, easy

[nik1998]

4♥ Very easy

[HeartA]

4♥, very very easy

[nik1998]

Yes! All write "Very Easy"!

[whereagles]

This hasn't been written yet:

4♥ wtp?

[gingolia]

whereagles, on Apr 15 2007, 08:34 AM, said:

This hasn't been written yet:

4♥ wtp?

I post the problem because partner holds:

♠KQT9xx
♥---
♦Axx
♣AKQx

Perhaps 4♥ is trivial obvious in 2nd seat ... how then should the auction go after P-4H-P- ? probably a lot easier after 1H, 3H, or even pass to get to 7♠

[mike777]

gingolia, on Apr 14 2007, 10:14 AM, said:

Scoring: IMP

West deals and pass to you (North).

---

Not 4H, easy.....Why would I open 4h in sec

[P_Marlowe]

4H, but I can understand 3H.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[P_Marlowe]

gingolia, on Apr 16 2007, 12:11 AM, said:

whereagles, on Apr 15 2007, 08:34 AM, said:

This hasn't been written yet:

4♥ wtp?

I post the problem because partner holds:

♠KQT9xx
♥---
♦Axx
♣AKQx

Perhaps 4♥ is trivial obvious in 2nd seat ... how then should the auction go after P-4H-P- ? probably a lot easier after 1H, 3H, or even pass to get to 7♠

Pass.

It depends on your agreements about
a 3H / 4H opener in 2nd seat.

For me 4H is more or less systemic, but
3H is not out of the world.

After 3H you will reach 6S, I doubt that
you can find 7S, it is not easy finding out
about 2 singles, and do you really believe
partner holds an 8 carder having opened 3H?

With kind regards
Marlowe

[jdonn]

It's really just 6♠, only makes 7 on a trump lead because the club singleton is the jack.

[the hog]

I would open 4H.

I read an interesting post on another bb a few days ago about "How to beat the Italians". This wrote about Italian bidding methods and why Italians never pre empt on hands like this, for fear of causing a swing, missing a slam etc. Maybe that philosophy is right.

[Free]

gingolia, on Apr 16 2007, 06:11 AM, said:

whereagles, on Apr 15 2007, 08:34 AM, said:

This hasn't been written yet:

4♥ wtp?

I post the problem because partner holds:

♠KQT9xx
♥---
♦Axx
♣AKQx

Perhaps 4♥ is trivial obvious in 2nd seat ... how then should the auction go after P-4H-P- ? probably a lot easier after 1H, 3H, or even pass to get to 7♠

Well I guess it depends on your agreements here. If you suppose that any suit opener bid is trump then you're screwed. However if you can bid natural, 4♠ is quite obvious imo.

If opener hears 4♠, he will support for sure, and if that's 5 or 6 level, you'll find 6♠. 7♠ is hard to find.

[whereagles]

The_Hog, on Apr 16 2007, 08:00 AM, said:

why Italians never pre empt on hands like this, for fear of causing a swing, missing a slam etc. Maybe that philosophy is right.

Maybe they're right, but I find that quite hard to believe.

[Codo]

whereagles, on Apr 16 2007, 07:31 PM, said:

The_Hog, on Apr 16 2007, 08:00 AM, said:

why Italians never pre empt on hands like this, for fear of causing a swing, missing a slam etc. Maybe that philosophy is right.

Maybe they're right, but I find that quite hard to believe.

And maybe they won "any" international title in the last decade and others did not?


I am glad to be one of two passers so far. This is a more or less no brainer 4 Heart in any other seat, but in second you deserve to find pd with "his" hand, even if this monster is quite unlikely.

[mikegill]

Nobody seems to be pointing out that whatever you open you're going to have a devil of a time bidding a slam here regardless. People are just assuming you would get there. Part of the reason I believe this hand should open 4H is that you really just can't even come close to describing it any other way - anything else you do will be a gross distortion.

Lets say you pass, as several are suggesting. Partner will open 1S. Now what are you going to bid? You can bid 2H. That's non-forcing - you might play 2H when 4H or 4S is cold. But no spade raise is even close to appropriate either. Let's say you bid drury as a raise of partner's spades. Fine, but now you can never show your 8-card suit, which will very likely be worthless in spades. I don't like putting down unshown 8-card suits as dummy. You end up playing your 5-3 fit which might not break, instead of your 8-2 fit. Yes it might work here, but it also might backfire horribly. Partner's hand isn't good enough to just blast keycard facing a drury raise I don't think, so he will make some kind of game try, and you will probably bid 3H and slow him down anyway. In fact, you might just have to suck it up and bid 4H over 1S, hoping partner will read your telepathic "I have spade support" vibes you're sending. In practice he won't and you'll play 4H. Point being - no sequence of bidding describes this hand at all if you pass initially.

Let's say you open 1H. Partner probably bids 1S - even if you play strong J/S, most people won't do it without knowing what trumps are and his hand certainly does not. Now, you basically must bid 2H. If you blast 4, you're worse off than before because partner with his moose will probably just bid 6H. You -could- correct this to 6S if you want, but there's no reason why pard must have 5 of them. After 2H, partner will bid some kind of nebulous forcing 3m, and you will again have a decision. You can bid 3S and partner will put you in your 5-3 fit instead of your 8-2 sometimes, and you may put him in a bind if he has only 4 spades. If the bidding follows specifically this course, you will almost certainly get to slam on this hand. But you might very well bid 3H, since you have only shown 6 and you have 8. Partner can always bid 3S over this and you can raise to 4.

If you open 3H, you will probably get to slam, since pard will bid 3S and you will raise to 4, but 3H is a horrible bid in my opinion. Partner with KQxx K xxxx xxxx is surely not raising you, yet game is cold. And that's an 8-count. There are tons of random 12-counts where he wouldn't raise and game is cold. Opening 3H here seems like resulting to me.

There's just as good a chance that LHO will hold the hand pard was holding, in which case passing or opening anything below 4H will make his life ever so much easier. Sometimes preempts don't work - it's part of the game.

[Apollo81]

If I wrote an article advocating passing on this hand then the title would be "How to Lose at Bridge"

[mike777]

Yes, I may miss 6s but you do have a chance after:

1h=1s
2h=3c
3h=3s
4s=?

Yes, rebidding 4h rather than 4s is reasonable also. I guess I understand opening 4H but its seems far from easy with AJx of spades.

[whereagles]

Codo, on Apr 16 2007, 01:37 PM, said:

whereagles, on Apr 16 2007, 07:31 PM, said:

The_Hog, on Apr 16 2007, 08:00 AM, said:

why Italians never pre empt on hands like this, for fear of causing a swing, missing a slam etc. Maybe that philosophy is right.

Maybe they're right, but I find that quite hard to believe.

And maybe they won "any" international title in the last decade and others did not?

So what? If they had won EVERY title I might start to think they're right. But they've won 1 bermuda bowl out of 5, so that hardly qualifies as dominance.

[the hog]

Apollo81, on Apr 16 2007, 10:06 PM, said:

If I wrote an article advocating passing on this hand then the title would be "How to Lose at Bridge"

Ah the arrogance of youth. I wonder if you have won as much as the Italians, (rhetorical question). Anyway, I did say I would have opened 4H as well.

The following 2 hands are a far cry from the posted one, but they give you an idea.
Versace, in an internet match, all vulnerable, passed on
Xx
Xx
KQJ10xxxx
X

In a world championship final 2005, NV vs vul he passed in first seat on
X
Xxxx
Xx
KQJ10xx