Strong preemptive bid (4 of major)?

[dartagnan9]

Hi

 

A little personal history. I learned bridge about twenty years ago, played seriously for about 8 years, then packed it in until a couple of years ago. In the interregnum, things changed a pace, and I'm constantly learning that my old bidding practices are out-of-date.

 

So I'm wondering about opening 4 of a major. I'm fairly strict about preempts: very little strength outside of bid suit; good sequence of honors; not openable at the one level. But ...

 

The other day I played a hand with 8 spades, AQJ and at least an outside Ace - don't remember the exact layout. This was a robot race. I opened 1 heart. We were vulnerable. Bidding was competitive, and with resolutely no support from partner, I declined to overcall their 4 hearts. I got a bottom.

 

I was curious about how others bid, and found that, almost without exception, people had opened my hand 4 spades. This left me confused. How is partner supposed to know if it's a true pre-emptive bid, or a strong hand? You might belong in slam, but if a 4-level preempt in a major can ALSO mean 8 trump, with no side honors, how do I know what to do, as the partner. It seems to me that if you have the kind of hand I described above, you're better opening at the one level, and finding out what your partner has.

 

So have practices changed?

 

Many thanks! Keith

[whereagles]

People have realized that you can usually get away with murder by opening 4M on all sorts of unsuitable hands. That's why you see more and more of stuff like 4M on

 

- broken suits

- side strength

- 6-5 shapes

- mildly defensive hands

- hands slightly above minimum 1M openers

 

In 3rd seat this tendency is even greater due to pard having usually little further saying in the matter. Some players dislike this randomness but like the preemptive effect. They've devised gadgets to mitigate randomness, like namyats (opening 4m showing a strong pree in the linked major) or dbl by preemptor to show side strength or 3NT openers to show 6-5s.

 

So yeah, it seems to be normal these days. Still, you can more or less expect a classic pree style. That continues to be what preemptor has most of the time.

[aguahombre]

From reading these fora, I have noticed there are a number of members who advocate pretty much opening 4S with various hands. The thinking might be that it is 2-1 odds the bid will be more harmful to LHO and RHO than to Center Opponent.

 

Others have two ways of showing, for instance, a hand which wants to start the auction at the 4-level. One method is Namyats, where 4M= 7 to 7 1/2 tricks and 4 of the corresponding minor shows a trick more. Each of these bids show (at most) one outside Ace or King as part of the trick count.

 

There are variations, such as the 3NT opening conventional with a solid major. Hands which have more outside things tend to open 1M.

 

I see Whereagles got in first with much of what I posted.

[aguahombre]

In 3rd seat this tendency is even greater due to pard having usually little further saying in the matter.

Quite true. But there are some who think even a passed partner should have a clue as to the offense/defense nature of the opener's hand in order to be the one in charge of any further competition by us.

[awm]

As someone who used to never open these hands 4M but has changed to almost always opening them 4M, perhaps I can comment.

 

The 4M opening puts a huge amount of pressure on the opposition. They have to guess whether you opened on a typical preempt (in which case they may well want to double you or compete) or whether you have a good hand (in which case competing is very dangerous). Even quite strong opponents get this wrong fairly frequently, and it can be quite expensive for them when they do.

 

Of course there is some chance that you miss a slam by opening 4M on a good hand, because partner will not know what you have either. However, this is relatively rare, and the slam may be hard to bid in any case. I remember getting a matchpoint top by opening 4M and playing there ice cold for twelve tricks... because opponents had eleven tricks in diamonds and people were defending 6♦X-1 and 7♦X-2 on my cards.

 

Anyway it's easy to question whether you win more from the preempt or lose more by missing good contracts. I used bridge browser to go through a very large number of hands played on BBO (both by the general population, and restricted to tables with four "good players"). Turns out the preemptive opening is a really consistent winner.

[helene_t]

I think your decision to open 1♠ is probably ok. But in robot race you know that p has no more points than you have so the chance of missing slam with a heavy preempt is slim. Besides, you want to finish as many boards as possible in 25 minutes.

[manudude03]

I know it says its a robot race in the OP, but I don't think it was, the same hands aren't dealt to everyone in races. Anyway, I'm also a strong believer in opening "strong" pre-empts. The cost of missing slams is more than made up by how awkward you make it for opponents.

[mgoetze]

If it was a robot duplicate then the best hand principle also applies which strongly biases the decision towards opening 4M.

[aguahombre]

If it was a robot duplicate then the best hand principle also applies which strongly biases the decision towards opening 4M.

Yes, true. The Robot Race issue does scew things a lot. The question about what people do these days, after the OP's 20-year layoff, would not necessarily apply to the actual situation.

[MrAce]

I know it says its a robot race in the OP, but I don't think it was, the same hands aren't dealt to everyone in races.

 

I thought robot races were being played with same hands too.

[helene_t]

No. Robot Duplicate is, though. If it was robot duplicate then the best hand principle applies, but you have 25 minutes for 8 hands so it is no rush.

[tolvyrj]

We have decided with my prd to play 4M as pre-empt that can be( depending on vulnerability of course) quite weak; broken suit and other stuff that Whereagles describe. On the other hand our Namyats xfers 4C to H and 4D to S promise 9.5 to 10.5 playing tricks and a suit that is good for trumps versus void with max. 1 loser in trump suit.

Thats to avoid awkward situations where pre-empters prd will face when cards hint for slam if prd is not in with garbage hand.

[barmar]

Robot Duplicate and Robot Rewards 55% are played with the same hands, Robot Race, Robot Reward, and Bingo are played with random hands. Since he said he got a bottom, it must have been Duplicate or Rewards.

 

In all of these, except Robot Rewards - Random, the human player always has the most HCP. So if you have an average opening hand, it's rare that partner has enough to make a slam. It might be possible due to distribution, but you're probably not going to be able to find this out.

 

Another advantage of opening 4♠ in these types of games is that the opponents will probably misdefend, since they're not going to expect much outside.

[dartagnan9]

Thanks for all of the informed replies. Actually, to clarify, my question wasn't what to do in robot play, but more to discuss with my very real offline partner. (It's just that the example came up in robot play.) I'd argue, though, that even in robot races, where you know partner is, at best, the same strength, there'd still be a possibility of a slam, if you have a hand that would be considered too strong for a preempt as strictly defined.

 

But AWM's statistical analysis speaks volumes. My partner agreed yesterday to stick to clear preempts, but those statistic, and the explanation behind them, make me want to reconsider.

 

Great discussion. Thanks, Keith

[Bbradley62]

But this is a bit much...

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