Preempt Style

[whereagles]

This hand is here because my partner screamed and yelled at me for opening 2♥. She (so NOT Adam, as he is very eager for me to point out) was very displeased when the opponent overcalled 3C over this, and she doubled with Axxx x AKxx Axxx and 3C made.

 

She made statements along the lines of it being a failure to play bridge if I open this hand 2♥ (instead of the pass that she wanted) and that she's never going to bid over my preempts again.

One has to be able to put up with occasional failures and understand them in light of the random nature of the game. Normal and reasonable bids, like 2♥ and dbl, sometimes don't work out as they should.

 

I would probably open 3♥ though. The hand has zero defense and loads of offense. The perfect pattern for a high preempt.

[y66]

Seems like an obv 2H. I don't understand the objection to the 7th heart, our hand is not good enough to open 3H and surely our partner won't be disappointed with our 7th trump if we open 2. Is it just some arbitrary rule? If partner ever goes to 3N we can go to 4H.

Yes, arbitrary rule and a strong natural inclination to bid 3 with that hand, regardless of vulnerability. Will rethink that based on comments in this thread.

[JLOGIC]

I understand the feeling that hands evaluate differently for non heart contracts, so that hands worth a 2H bid with 7 hearts will have worse hands for defense and 3N than hands with 6 hearts.

 

However, I don't feel that a 2H bid promises any defensive strength and I feel that if partner is going to bid 3N we are going to bid 4H with 7 broken hearts anyways, and that should be fine.

 

To me this is not the equivalent of opening a 1 bid because we have extra shape even though we have no defense and terrible hands for contracts that arent in our suit. A preempt is just saying we have a good suit and a hand worth x amount for offense in our suit. To me it is a flaw in a preempt if it has too much side defense.

 

Yes this does widen your range for preempting a bid, but the point is to make them guess while maintaining some constructive ability/safety, so that is a necessity.

 

Even if you think the 7th heart is an evil, I just don't like any alternative to it at all. Passing with a pretty good 7 card suit when you can both destruct their auction as well as get the nature of your hand across reasonably well in one bid (not that much defense, long/good hearts) is not palatable at all to me. Hands like this are the reason that preempts exist to me.

 

Also I WOULD double with your partners hand all vul at MP, but I would do so knowing it's possible they are cold. If we catch the HA with partner they are obv down, and we have chances if we catch a doubleton diamond or anything else on the side like a queen, or even if we don't and they are kind of mirrored and have to lose a slow heart. I would never blame the preemptor for preempting without the ace or anything else, and of course it is a disaster when you hit something like xx KQJTxx Jxxx x, but that's matchpoints!

[gnasher]

While you are certainly correct that this is not a 2♥ bid in your style, I doubt the OP is interested in your specific style, but more the style of a standard partner.

What part of "What's your call?" implies that?

[CSGibson]

This hand is here because my partner screamed and yelled at me for opening 2♥. She (so NOT Adam, as he is very eager for me to point out) was very displeased when the opponent overcalled 3C over this, and she doubled with Axxx x AKxx Axxx and 3C made.

 

She made statements along the lines of it being a failure to play bridge if I open this hand 2♥ (instead of the pass that she wanted) and that she's never going to bid over my preempts again.

I'm sorry that you had that frustrating experience. Personally, if I am in a new partnership with someone I think is tightly wound, I try and make a statement like "I want you to know, going into the evening, that there will be some bids I make that you will not agree with, & vice versa". Don't know if it helps us play well, but it does set expectations.

[jdonn]

Agree that I would have duplicated both of your actions, and I wouldn't have been mad at my partner at all for taking either action.

[aguahombre]

and of course it is a disaster when you hit something like xx KQJTxx Jxxx x, but that's matchpoints!

The rest of Justin's post is merely excellent. But this part nails it.

 

A perfectly normal 2H opening, which cannot be criticized in any way, but still becomes hopeless defending 3C. Conclusion: sh-- happens, and as Joey would say, "NEXT".

[Elianna]

This hand is here because my partner screamed and yelled at me for opening 2♥.  She (so NOT Adam, as he is very eager for me to point out) was very displeased when the opponent overcalled 3C over this, and she doubled with Axxx  x  AKxx Axxx and 3C made.

 

She made statements along the lines of it being a failure to play bridge if I open this hand 2♥ (instead of the pass that she wanted) and that she's never going to bid over my preempts again.

I'm sorry that you had that frustrating experience. Personally, if I am in a new partnership with someone I think is tightly wound, I try and make a statement like "I want you to know, going into the evening, that there will be some bids I make that you will not agree with, & vice versa". Don't know if it helps us play well, but it does set expectations.

This is not a new partnership.

 

We usually have at least once hand that we're unhappy with each other.

 

Anyway, she yells a lot less than a different regular partner, who I stopped playing with for other reasons. Who also had strange ideas about preempts.

 

Anyway, I don't mind the yelling, I can take it. I just wanted to know if I was the crazy one.

[junyi_zhu]

This hand is here because my partner screamed and yelled at me for opening 2♥. She (so NOT Adam, as he is very eager for me to point out) was very displeased when the opponent overcalled 3C over this, and she doubled with Axxx x AKxx Axxx and 3C made.

 

She made statements along the lines of it being a failure to play bridge if I open this hand 2♥ (instead of the pass that she wanted) and that she's never going to bid over my preempts again.

if she can't beat 3C, it's unlucky IMO.

[eyhung]

While you are certainly correct that this is not a 2♥ bid in your style, I doubt the OP is interested in your specific style, but more the style of a standard partner.

What part of "What's your call?" implies that?

Ah, the pedant again. It's true that the literal interpretation of "What's your call?" = "do me the favor of telling me your specific style"? But I don't see the need for the diplomatic pretense that everyone's style is equally valid. If I were to respond saying I would open 1♥ because I play that opening 1-bids don't promise any defense or I would open 4♥ because partnership style says it's ok to overbid by 5 playing tricks vulnerable, I doubt the OP would be terribly interested.

[nigel_k]

There are lots of people out there who think a weak two bid requires high cards. Allowing is to be just a weaker version of a three bid, as Justin described, is better in my opinion. But nobody is crazy here - you just need an agreement.

[gnasher]

Ah, the pedant again.  It's true that the literal interpretation of "What's your call?" = "do me the favor of telling me your specific style"?  But I don't see the need for the diplomatic pretense that everyone's style is equally valid.  If I were to respond saying I would open 1♥ because I play that opening 1-bids don't promise any defense or I would open 4♥ because partnership style says it's ok to overbid by 5 playing tricks vulnerable, I doubt the OP would be terribly interested.

I don't particularly mind being accused of pedantry, but I don't think I have been guilty of that here.

 

Adam is both intelligent and literate; I'm sure that if he'd wanted to ask "What do you think is the standard call amongst thirty-something males in California?" he would have done so. Since he in fact asked "What's your call?", under the heading "Preempt Style", it seems reasonable to assume that he wanted to know what everybody thinks the hand is worth, and how their style of preempts bears upon this evaluation.

 

Personally I find it interesting to see how styles vary around the world. I'd like to continue to indulge this interest, so I'd prefer it if people didn't get snubbed for describing a style that doesn't fit into some individual's view of what is standard.

 

In any case, requiring some defensive strength for a weak two is hardly avant garde.

[babalu1997]

3H.

 

I have seen good players open 2M with 7 cards but I have never tried that. For me, 2H denies 7 hearts.

and reporting here from palooka land i have never seen folks who open 2h with 7 cards get a good result.

 

the ones who bid 3h later in the auction still get beaten.

[mycroft]

I would "upgrade" that hand at EHAA or playing with the partner we agreed to open EHAA-style 3-bids in the majors to 7 losers and bid 3H.

I would treat it as a bad 7-card suit with another partner, and open 2H (outside the ACBL where I'm allowed to treat this as a 6-count).

I would pass without thinking with another partner, who won't accept this undisciplined a 2H call.

 

On this hand, it's unfortunate that your hand doesn't promote a trick and 3Cx rolled. "If they never make a doubled contract against you, you're not doubling enough." Second the "partners that yell at me at the table can find another partner." My current partner never yells, he just gets So Disappointed...

[eyhung]

Personally I find it interesting to see how styles vary around the world. I'd like to continue to indulge this interest, so I'd prefer it if people didn't get snubbed for describing a style that doesn't fit into some individual's view of what is standard.

As elianna stated in a later post which was available at the time I replied to Dirk, the purpose of the post was not to determine what "your call is", but whether bidding 2♥ was "crazy" (i.e., not in accordance with conventional wisdom), because her partner was unhappy with the opening. That sounds like an attempt to determine what is standard and what isn't. Dirk then posted his approach. I then replied to dirk in my experience, requiring defensive strength for a weak two is non-standard (and in my opinion, sub-optimal), so his approach was unlikely to be of interest to the OP. We then get derailed into yet another nitpicky discussion.

 

Note I'm not opposed to weak twos which DO require significant defensive strength -- I myself play them with one regular partner. But to sit down opposite a generic 2/1 (as specified in the OP) partner and to expect enough defensive strength to make non-solo penalty doubles based on that assumption seems crazier to me than opening 2♥ with this hand.

[gwnn]

don't think 2♥ or 3♥ is perfect, but I'd never pass. of course 3♥ is slightly crazy though. Particularly if I was playing with clone gwnn who sometimes raises 3M to 4M on a weak notrump because he thinks sometimes it magically makes (which is true actually)

 

@eyhung: awm asked a question and Tyler answered it. it was a very nice textbook example of basic human communication. I think you needlessly interfered with less than happy results.

[awm]

I don't have any issues with any of the posts in this thread. It's perfectly valid to mention your preferred style in your partnerships, as long as it fits the general framework of natural preempts (i.e. I don't want to hear that this is an obvious 2♦ multi bid, or that you can't bid 2♥ on this hand because that's flannery).

 

Certainly part of the question is about what you'd expect in a partnership without formal discussion of the issue, but now that this has happened maybe Elianna and her partner want to have some discussion of preempt style... In that context knowing what people like in their regular partnerships is just as useful as knowing what people would expect opposite a "random expert."

[gwnn]

Next time I open a thread I will add "plz if you play a suboptimal style then do me a favour and don't post". That will teach people like TylerE.

[655321]

If I may be a pedant, the poster receiving instructions from the policeman wasn't TylerE but Dirk Kuijt.

[gwnn]

If I may be a pedant, the poster receiving instructions from the policeman wasn't TylerE but Dirk Kuijt.

please, your definition of "pedant" is so far from standard that you really have no place in this thread.

[Dirk Kuijt]

ey

 

I think I really have only three options here:

 

1. Go poll at least a handful of real experts.

 

2. Give my own best opinion.

 

3. Silence.

 

Choice one will obviously get the best opinion. However, since I have no way of doing that, choice one is equivalent to choice three.

 

Choice two has the obvious flaw that I haven't won the Spingold (or anything in that league, or the next league down or the next one, depending on how you measure leagues), so why should anyone take any notice of my opinion, anyway? That is a fair point, and it is for that reason that I don't post opinions in the advanced and expert forum. That leads us to choice three.

 

Choice three has the obvious flaw that if people posting opinions on the forums are restricted to people who have won the Spingold or equivalent, there aren't going to be many opinions posted, period.

 

So, I tried my best. FWIW, and I understand that you have no way of knowing this, whenever I give an opinion that I know is at variance with general expert opinion (on bridge or any other subject), I label it as such. From the answers to this question, my opinion is at variance with general expert opinion; I promise you I didn't know that at the time.

[JLOGIC]

I AM A PSYCHOPATH BUT MIKEH IS GIVING ME THE HELP I NEED

[Fluffy]

What about pulling to 3♥ after the double?, I wouln't have done so but I would find it a bit close.

[bluecalm]

What about pulling to 3♥ after the double?, I wouln't have done so but I would find it a bit close.

 

I find it absolutely retarded.

If I think the hand is worth opening 2♥ and the pulling to 3♥ why the hell wouldn't I open 3♥ to begin with ?

[junyi_zhu]

What about pulling to 3♥ after the double?, I wouln't have done so but I would find it a bit close.

It's actually not a very bad bid at all if one plays a wide range weak 2 opening and rather aggressive penalty doubles. Of course it requires partnership understandings.

Suppose partner shows about 15 HCP stiff or void in H, you actually don't mind playing 3H because this hand is very offensive oriented. Of course you may miss some occasional huge penalties, but that's also the way to get you to pretty good 4H when partner holds a good hand, short H when 3C x isn't very profitable. Often, this 3C double may not be profitable if the overcaller holds very long clubs.