[louisg]

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This is very simple. We have our bid. Partner did not invite us to bid more. Therefore there's no reason to bid further.

If partner had wanted to invite us to bid more, how could he have done so? If your answer is 5D, imagine a similar auction where our suits are touching.

[jdonn]

louisg, on May 1 2008, 01:05 PM, said:

Quote

This is very simple. We have our bid. Partner did not invite us to bid more. Therefore there's no reason to bid further.

If partner had wanted to invite us to bid more, how could he have done so? If your answer is 5D, imagine a similar auction where our suits are touching.

He can't. Unless you are going to do some artificial thing involving pass and double (which would mean make the auction forcing - clearly not standard) he has one bid to do two things. Bid 5♥ when he doesn't want you to bid on (maybe to make, maybe as a save, maybe to push them higher he hopes), or invite slam. It is so easy to tell how much less useful inviting slam is opposite as well defined of a bid as 4♥ than just bidding 5♥ for all the other reasons combined when he doesn't want us to bid on, especially considering the slam invite would be completely vague and doesn't convey specific or useful information.

The way to think about this is that partner is often taking a chance with bids like this. If he has to worry about you hanging him, he loses his ability to use his fine judgment and take a chance because it just gives him a choice between defending 5♣ or playing 6♥. This is still a wtp.

[louisg]

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as well defined of a bid as 4♥

This seems to be the crux of the issue. Is 4H such a well defined bid in this auction (comparable to an opening 1NT or a weak 2, as others have suggested) that partner is in complete control of the auction? I think in practice we all recognize that 4H might be bid with a reasonably wide variety of hands. Would it not be reasonable to assume that the 4H bidder can reopen with a double to say "4H was not purely preemptive, so now you can bid on if you like", and by so doing allow doubler's direct 5H bid to be more of a constructive effort? I take it from most of the comments here that this approach is not considered standard, but why not? Certainly the doubler's hand is unlimited, and there is considerable value in giving him an opportunity to better define his range.

One more point: I don't think I would characterize my view of 5H as "a slam try", but I don't understand the eagerness to bid 5H as a save when the opponents were forced to guess at the 5 level and partner might hold some defensive values. I would say therefore that 5H was bid with the expectation of making it, and partner should be free to act again opposite such a hand.

[neilkaz]

han, on May 1 2008, 11:25 AM, said:

Here we go again, instead of thinking about which call has the best expected value we worry about what partner and teammates will do if we choose wrongly. If you really need to worry about that then perhaps it is time you find new people to play with.

Well.. I hope my post implied that I felt passing has the highest expected value by far, and tried to indicate that with my poor comical attempts after what I felt was a decent explanation and agreeing with nearly everyone else here to pass.

This is a WTP pass for me as it seems to be for some others. I dislike using that WTP term as it can be insulting to the OP who obviously had some real concern that bidding slam was best, while I seriously doubt there's more than 20 or 25% chance that PD holds just what I need to make it. If slam is considerably better than that, then I will have learned something here.

One thing, however, is that if I continually make a clear majority of incorrect high level competitive decisions in expert team games, my pard and teammates who enjoy winning as much as I do, may reevalute whether I should be playing with them.

[cherdano]

louisg, on Apr 30 2008, 09:09 PM, said:

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Very easy pass. Even if 6♥ could possibly make it's a total shot in the dark and very undisciplined. How much less than this are we supposed to have been able to bid 4♥ with?

How about xxx KTxxxx x Axx? Given that we are now pretty sure that partner has a club void (they figure to be 6-4 on everyone's bidding), isn't this hand a full trick worse than the actual one?

I would say it the other way round. If you have the ♣A, this will be a disappointment to partner. Now one of the values you promised for 4♥ is wasted, and with this hand I would fully expect that 5♥ by partner will turn out to be a phantom save.

[ArtK78]

I think that passing over 5♥ is fairly clear. And also the 4♥ bid is fairly well defined - offensive strength sufficient to take a shot at game but, since there was no cue bid, not a pure power bid. So the hand should be less than an opening bid but with sufficient distributional strength and a good fit to warrant a game bid.

In this context, partner's 5♥ bid is clearly to play. And there is no guarantee that 5♥ will make, or that the opponents are not making 5♣.

[rogerclee]

Are there really two threads of detailed discussion about this decision?

Passsssssssssssssssssss.

[mikeh]

I am late to the party, but this is an easy pass for me.

I do not mean, by saying that it is easy, that I think that we have little hope of making slam. I would not be the least bit surprised to take 12 tricks.. nor would I be surprised to be held to 11.. I would be somewhat surprised to go down.

I have a good hand, in context, but not an unexpected hand in context.. more importantly, we have to decide, as a matter of philosophy in preempted auctions, whether it is more important to be able to suggest slam interest than it is to be able to make a competitive judgement call: is it better to play 5♥ as a slam try or as reflecting the view that it will be better for us to play 5♥ than to defend 5♣?

This is absolutely NOT a FP situation... we wouldn't be having this discussion if it were... or the discussion would be fundamentally different. Our 4♥ call was wide-range.... and no way does it promise that I will double (or bid) over 5♣ if partner passes, as he will, holding a minimum takeout double lacking in Aces.

It seems to me to be self-evident that the bid or pass scenario is going to be far more common than the 'can we make slam and can we evaluate correctly in that context' scenario.

So, to me, it is abundantly clear that the 5♥ reflects a preference to declare rather than to defend.

It will be made on hands opposite which we can make 12 tricks with our cards, but it should also be made on hands where 10 or (more commonly) 11 tricks are the limit even opposite this hand.

It is critical to understand and accept that their preemptive action has deprived us of the ability to show both types of hands... so we suck it up, and decide which approach is ON AVERAGE more effective.. and concede that this won't work all the time.

[jtfanclub]

While I agree that in standard bidding this is not a FP situation, mightn't this be a good situation to have it be a FP?

I really don't think 4♥ is more pre-emptive than 3♥...opps will take the double shot over 4♥ frequently when they would have died in 4♣ over 3♥. So maybe it's worth having a FP in this situation.

[han]

I think that is a horrible idea. We preempted, there is no reason while this should be our hand and we can't let them play undoubled.

[gnasher]

I was about to ask why MikeH thought it necessary to tell us that this wasn't a forcing pass situation, but then I saw the post that followed it.

Now I want to know how Mike knew that someone was going to make this suggestion. And can he use this strange power to predict other unlikely occurrences?

[jtfanclub]

gnasher, on May 1 2008, 04:40 PM, said:

Now I want to know how Mike knew that someone was going to make this suggestion.

I wouldn't have made the suggestion except for his post.

I'm just not convinced that 4♥ is actually more likely to keep them out of game than 3♥.

[han]

The goal of preempting is not to keep the opponents out of game, it is to make them guess. Often they'll bid game when they shouldn't.