[jahol]

Vulnerable against non-vulnerable, you have:

AKQx---Ax---KJ10x---Q10x.

The bidding starts with 3H pre from the right (explained as having potential 6 tricks for H contract). You double, pass from LHO, and your partner bids 4 spades passed back to you. Your decision?

JH

[Free]

With what does partner bid 4♠? His strength isn't in ♠, so he must have values somewhere else. I think a slam try should be in place, and RKC might be the best option here...

[flytoox]

6S if you want to gamble, but scientific bid is 5H I think.

[joker_gib]

4SA RKCB last little fear is the lack of 2 aces !

[luke warm]

4nt if it's rkc

[hotShot]

Without knowing all your agreements your partner surely has at least 10 hcp.
They can't be in ♠ and if they where in ♥ partner could have passed your dbl. So he must have something in ♦ and ♣.
I can hardly imagine better news. So all we need to know is the number of keycards missing.
4NT seems the best choice.

[Fluffy]

Pass:
My doubles show 15 HCP already, I have not that much extras to keep on bidding (note that ♥Ax is not much better than ♥x, specially after LHO didn't raise).

[P_Marlowe]

I pass, but if you want to make a move, bid 4 NT RKCB,
not perfect, because you may still miss AK of clubs, but
thats what preempts are for, kill space.

Partner may have bid 4S under pressure, so that even
the 5 level is not save.

Greed your teeth and pass, writing RHO name in your black
book and after the game is over call your friend, who happens
to have contact to the Cosa Nostra.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[whereagles]

I pass. Got extras, but I don't think they're enuff.

[HeartA]

After opps' preemptive, usually it is a good strategy to bid not too high. But for this hand, I have too much and pd wouldn't bid 4♠ with 5♠ and ♦ only. So I will bid 4NT to check key cards.

[mike777]

If you do not make a slam try with this hand, you only encourage us to make even more silly 3 bids.

[luke warm]

mike777, on Apr 1 2005, 07:30 PM, said:

If you do not make a slam try with this hand, you only encourage us to make even more silly 3 bids.

oh hell yes

[whereagles]

Preempts are meant to put opps to a guess and in this one you're definitely taking the last guess. That itself already means the preempt worked (whether you like it or not, it's a fact.. lol)

[jahol]

After some thinking, I bid RKC and my partner showed zero values. I bid 5 spades. My RHO led singleton diam to ace getting ruff and cashing club ace. Down one. That is, what pre-empts are for, in my opinion.....

This board was played in team competition. At the other table, our partners were even more aggressive and the opening bid was 4H (they bid by one trick more aggressive than the opponents i.e. for four down, when non-vulnerable against vulnerable, partner having absolutely no useful value). In fact, the more agressive bid caused less problems, by chance. On the first look, the reaction of the opponents was the same as in our case - double and four spades. However, the opponent bidding double was not encouraged to bid slam now, as 4 spades had been the lowest possible answer of his partner. He passed 4 spades and our partners bid 5 hearts doubled, down two.

I think that I would still prefer trying slam with similar hand next time. There is reasonable argument (made above) that my double should represent a quite nice hand (an equivalent of 15 points) so that my partner does not quarantee perfect hand jumping to game. Yes, but not only me, but also him was put under big pressure with that pre-empt. With relatively nice hand, he still may not have any other bid but 4 spades.

JH

[mike777]

Interesting, if p played you for 4144 AKQX=X=KJXX=QXXX and 15 hcp what was their 4s bid on? If P had JXXXX=X=QXXX=KJX THEN 4S is down on same defense yes? In fact, I can see 3s going down on many hands if opening leader has stiff D. Perhaps they have a clear 4s bid but seems often in these forum quiz the problem was with p bid not ours.

Strongly agree with you making a slam try, maybe just the "Rub of the Green".