To preempt or not to preempt, that is the question

[whereagles]

IMPs. Match status: swingy mood, but scores tied. Table: aggressive expert pard, cunning expert RHO, intermediate passive LHO.

 

[hv=d=n&v=b&s=saq97xxxhxdaxxcax]133|100|Scoring: IMP

Pard RHO you

Pass 1♥ ..??[/hv]

What number of spades do you bid? Or do you prefer dbl? :)

 

Note: a WJO by you at this stage need not be "weak". It's just a Robson/Segal style pressure-bid.

[pclayton]

1♠. No need to get manic here regardless of my 'swingy' mood.

[kenrexford]

I have not been happy with my prior decisions to blast 4♠ with this type of hand.

[dicklont]

1♠

My aggressive partner will act if he has something to offer.

 

After (1♥) - 1♠ - (pass) 1NT/2♣/2♦ I will jump to 3♠.

[CSGibson]

1♠, no problems thus far.

[mike777]

4s

1s, second choice.

[helene_t]

1♠. My preempts are getting less sick due to influence from this forum.

[han]

1S, Helene has convinced me to stop using sick preempts. I don't think 4S is very sick here btw. It's quite unlikely that you have slam and likely that they have a heart fit. However, If I can bid 1S now and 3S next then I'm happy.

[jdonn]

1S, Helene has convinced me to stop using sick preempts. I don't think 4S is very sick here btw. It's quite unlikely that you have slam and likely that they have a heart fit. However, If I can bid 1S now and 3S next then I'm happy.

I sort of agree, maybe I'm changing but I don't find 4♠ quite as sick as others might, although I still bid 1♠. Throw in the jack of spades and now it's close since then there is a lot more potential and a lot less danger if partner has a singleton there.

[Apollo81]

Just one.

[skjaeran]

1♠ is appropriate here for me. 4♠ isn't totally sick - far from. Agree with Josh's last comment regarding adding the ♠J.

[Guest Jlall]

This is not the right hand for 4S, you have too much defense and too poor of a suit and too little offense.

[Cascade]

This looks like either 1♠ or 4♠.

 

Either could work well or badly.

 

I tend not to bid 4♠ with hands this strong so have a leaning towards 1♠.

 

Actually in my partnership we have another option of 2♠ intermediate. But I think 14 good points and a seventh spade is too good for a 12-16 2♠.

[effervesce]

3rd seat, partner passed hand, I would not mind 4S. Unlikely to be what the rest of the field bids though. 1S at IMPs, 4S at MPs?

[Cascade]

3rd seat, partner passed hand, I would not mind 4S. Unlikely to be what the rest of the field bids though. 1S at IMPs, 4S at MPs?

I am not convinced 4♠ is wrong but I am not sure why you would want to go anti-field so early in the hand at MPs.

[whereagles]

I can't remember the hands exactly, but it was something like...

 

[hv=d=n&v=b&n=sxhqtxxxdjtxctxxx&w=skjtxhxdqxxxxcjxx&e=sxhakj98xdkxckqxx&s=saq97xxxhxdaxxcax]399|300|Scoring: IMP

North East South West

pass .. 1♥ ..??[/hv]

I decided to bid 4♠, on grounds that it would shut opps out of the bidding and that it has a good chance to make. I was going for a bucketload, but East decided to bid 5♥!!! Now we slopped a trick and he ended "only" -500 down.

 

In case you're wondering, I ran a simulation for pard's hand. Constraints were:

- pard has 0-11 hcp

- RHO 5+ hearts, 11+ hcp

 

And results after 110 000 matching hands:

 

Pard: average of 2.1 spades and 6.35 hcp

Spade king: 26.6% in pard, 44.5% in RHO

 

4♠ is a statistical winner. Sure, you can always say you'd get there after a 1♠ overcall. Which is true... unless pard has 2 kings and passes 1♠ :ph34r:

 

By the way, I didn't took out of the simulation hands where pard would open 2x or 3x. If I had, the results would favour 4♠ even more.

[jdonn]

By the way, I didn't took out of the simulation hands where pard would open 2x or 3x. If I had, the results would favour 4♠ even more.

If partner were barred from the bidding :)

[mikeh]

In case you're wondering, I ran a simulation for pard's hand. Constraints were:

- pard has 0-11 hcp

- RHO 5+ hearts, 11+ hcp

 

And results after 110 000 matching hands:

 

Pard: average of 2.1 spades and 6.35 hcp

Spade king: 26.6% in pard, 44.5% in RHO

 

4♠ is a statistical winner.

If you mean that the simulation showed that 4♠ was a good contract... that getting to 4♠ was, if you got there everytime, better than not getting there, overall... then you may be correct, based on your simulation.

 

But if you interpreted your results, and intended your post, to say that a 4♠ overcall was a statistical winner, then I suspect that you are at the very least probably wrong.

 

You need to cater to several factors, of which the biggest two appear, to me, to be:

 

1. the number of the 110,000 hands on which your partnership would get to 4♠ by some other route...

 

2. the number of the 110,000 hands on which the immediate 4♠ gets you too high... when a 1♠ overcall would keep you safe. Your actual hand, against a decent pair, would go for a number.. and it is, as I know you know, a silly approach to rely upon the opponents being idiots.. yes, it allows you to do well in that field, but you will learn habits that get you killed when you play against better competition.

 

My suspicion is that the losses on the '4♠ is too high' hands will at least largely outweigh the gains from the 'we can't get there any other way' hands on which 4♠ wins. As for partner passing 1♠ when we can make game... last I heard, there was no rule that partner's pass barred rho or that, if rho reopens, we are not allowed to bid again. So while I fully accept that, on some of the hands where we make 4♠, we will miss it after an overcall at the one-level, I assuredly don' think that this will happen more than occasionally.

[whereagles]

Well... instead of "suspecting" of me being right or wrong, why don't you calculate the standard deviation of pard's nr. of spades and hcps? If the SD is high, you're right. If it's low, you're wrong.

[mr1303]

I was a 4S bidder, despite how it should have turned out.

[y66]

2007 Spingold, semifinals, board 2, w/r.

 

P (1D) ?

 

AQJT743 AJ3 4 A5

 

Nickell v Henner-Welland

 

In the open room, Chris Willenken passed, Paul Soloway opened 1D, Roy Welland overcalled 4S.

 

In the closed room, Hemant Lall passed, Christal Henner-Welland opened 1D, Nick Nickell overcalled 1S.

 

Click on match title for details (requires BBO viewer).

 

Ao v Gromov

 

In the open room, Jian-Jian Wang passed, Alexander Dubinin opened 1D, Hailong Ao overcalled 4S.

 

In the closed room room, Cezary Balicki passed, David Chechelashvili opened 1D, Adam Zmudzinski doubled.

 

Hailong Ao and Jian-Jian Wang are DC area players by the way :)

 

Not concluding anything until I find another 109,996 or so examples, preferably with them opening hearts.

 

p.s. LIN files are courtesy of Nikos Sarantakos' VuGraph Project

[han]

AQJ10xxx is very different from AQ9xxxx.

[foo]

AQJTxxx is very different from AQ9xxxx.

...and the semi-finals of the Spingold are not typical tournament conditions.

 

Almost no one who reads these forums has that caliber of Bridge skills, and those playing in such rarified events push bidding and card play to the absolute edge as a matter of course.