[bluecalm]

♠43 ♥AKJ4 ♦943 ♣AQ75

Non vul vs vul. Partner opens 3♠ in 1st seat.
It goes:
3♠ - pass - ??? your turn !

[gwnn]

Honestly I like bidding 4S on a lot of these weak NT ish hands with 2 card support. It often works in mysterious ways.

[Jlall]

white/red I pass

[aguahombre]

Pass. Unless partner forgot to open 4S, I won't guess this hand is magic, and have no reason to believe I need to further preempt the opponents.

Anyone can construct a 3S opener which with or without a little luck could make four. but I don't think the odds are there.

[neilkaz]

It's nice when the OP indicates scoring type, but anyhow, very easy pass at MP unless playing with my grandmother or dad 30 years ago when the preemptive style was very sound and we'd likely be a favorite to make game.

W/R at IMPs this also is a pass for me since a modern PD is not a favorite to be able to cover enough pointed suit losers and we still may need a round suit hook.

The added bonus from passing can come when LHO decides to balance. On a really fun day, the opps end up in 4♥x.

Also if PD preempted on true junk due to the vul, and we are getting set, we are hurt lots less at the 3 level than at the 4 level.

Pass.. neilkaz ..

[MarkDean]

I pass. Opposite some of my own white/red 3♠ openers, we are already going down.

[pooltuna]

bluecalm, on May 30 2010, 05:27 AM, said:

♠43 ♥AKJ4 ♦943 ♣AQ75

Non vul vs vul. Partner opens 3♠ in 1st seat.
It goes:
3♠ - pass - ??? your turn !

my best partner (R.I.P.) said I need a strong 2♣ opening bid to raise him under these colors. Frankly I would rather not consider opening 2♣ an option

[awm]

I'll bite and bid 4♠.

It seems to me that 7222 hands are not normally going to "upgrade" and open 4♠ regardless of the colors. With a spade suit like ♠KQJxxxx or ♠AQxxxxx and doubletons in the other suits, 4♠ is really quite good. If partner has a 7(321) then the spade suit could be somewhat worse, but if the singleton is in diamonds game should still be excellent.

A six-card spade suit is possible, but if that happens the suit should be quite strong with some shape outside (i.e. 6(421), not 6(332)). Hands like ♠KQJxxx ♥x ♦xx ♣JTxx or ♠AQJxxx ♥xx ♦x ♣xxxx offer decent play for game too.

Obviously some people preempt more aggressively than I do; I know at least one person for whom a five card suit is a strong possibility for this bid. However, I think it's important that partner have some idea what to do in these auctions. If you're really opening 4♠ on 7222s with a good suit and perhaps also on the hands with six-card suits above, good luck to you... but if you think these are all 3♠ bids but so are a lot of much worse hands, you're giving partner a hard time.

[NickRW]

At these colours I don't expect much of partner's hand - easy pass whatever the scoring method.

Nick

[the hog]

I am inclined to think I may well not make 3. Pass.

[655321]

gwnn, on May 30 2010, 06:11 AM, said:

Honestly I like bidding 4S on a lot of these weak NT ish hands with 2 card support. It often works in mysterious ways.

I agree with this - both the weak NT and the 2 card support. (With 3 card support I would always raise, with a singleton spade I am more confident about beating the opponents.)

If you ask, do I expect to make 4♠ opposite partner's w/r 3♠ opening, the answer is definitely no. But so often I have passed with this sort of hand, thinking that with so much defense surely the opponents can't make anything, yet it seemed that they always bid and made a game.

So now I generally bid, paying a small premium to avoid these big minuses. Turning -50 into -100 isn't so bad, turning +140 into -50 is worse, but is partially offset by the (rare) +420s.

Maybe this particular hand is strong enough that we can be confident of defeating the opponents if they bid, but I am not convinced.

[Siegmund]

If my partner looked at the vulnerability before he opened, this is either making 3 or going down 1. hard for me to see much good happening by bidding 4S... pushing them to 5D rather than 4, but they arent likely to bid anyway?

[Free]

In my style partner has 0-7HCP (but not a good 7HCP hand obviously) and 5+♠. No reason to bid, no reason to think, very easy pass.

[gwnn]

What makes me unsure of 4S is that I have giddie good hearts so they will never have 4H to make. But we are indeed going to make 4S some amount of the time so I am still bidding. Also I don't like very fine lines in positions like this, I prefer to bid in a uniform tempo and give nothing away about my hand.

[awm]

Obviously this depends a lot on what you expect for a favorable 3♠ preempt and it's easy to produce example hands for anything. But I'd be curious what some example 3♠ calls look like from the various responders on this thread. I suspect they look a lot different from what I'd open 3♠ on.

[mikeh]

With one partner, I'd raise to game: he is a conservative preemptor, so we will often have play.

With my other regular partners, I'd pass because they could have a horrible hand 1st seat w/r...and by 'could', I mean 'probably will'.

[bluecalm]

This is a hand from Polish Mixed Pairs Championship final (yeah !).

Opener has: ♠KQJT862 ♥QT9 ♦62 ♣2

Most pairs achieved 4♠. I am not familiar with the actual auctions though.
I guess proponents of passing would choose something different with this hand than 3♠ ? If so, what would you do with say: KQJTxxx xxx xx x; 2♠ and 4♠ seems awful to me as does passing.\

I would prefer to play a style when I could bid 4♠ with problem hand opposite even w/r opener (and I am not that old !)

[gwnn]

I will not hide the fact that I would open 4S with that hand even though it would be neat if I didn't.

[Siegmund]

At favorable, yes, many of us including myself consider KQJ-7 and out a crystal clear 4S opening. If I open 3S favorable I will essentially never have six almost-sure tricks in my own hand; perhaps KQT9xxx xx xx xx because of the bad shape.

[jdonn]

I might well have bid 3♠ and P with these hands. Darnit. If I did that and had to blame anyone it would be responder.