do you open 1 Spade with this hand?

[jdeegan]

:P 4♠ I was always taught to play all 7-4 hands in game. This one is a good 7-4 hand, and since pard passed, they likely have 4♥. Bidd'em up.

[gordontd]

I think you should pass. As you have the master suit, it's hard to imagine how you could get shut out of the bidding. Additionally with solid spades like that, 3NT could be a possibility - rating to outscore 4♠ which is important at MPs. In 3rd seat a preempt would be almost automatic but even then I see no reason to go beyond 3♠.

 

Pass - 10

2♠ - 8 (Especially if playing Ogust)

1♠ - 6

3♠ - 6

4♠ - 2

No-one seems to have mentioned the old story of a (supposedly strong) player passing a hand like this and, as all four of them were putting their hands back in the board, asking his partner what he had held. "Oh, just three bare aces". I guess they deserved each other.

 

btw What is the Ogust response that shows a solid seven-card suit?

[the hog]

No-one seems to have mentioned the old story of a (supposedly strong) player passing a hand like this and, as all four of them were putting their hands back in the board, asking his partner what he had held. "Oh, just three bare aces". I guess they deserved each other.

 

btw What is the Ogust response that shows a solid seven-card suit?

 

John Collings was "supposedly" a strong player?

[Scoti]

Yes, 1 spade regardless of vulnerability. Why would you preempt when you have spades and can overcall any other bid anyway. If ops want to go to 5 they are probably set and your p will know to lead a spade. Open one to find out what P has for points and suit, lest HE get preempted by ops. (Knowing you opened he may be able to overcall them whereas he may not be so inclined if they open with a preempt.) You can know you can always go to 4 sp anyway if needed, at no more risk than opening at that. Likewise you need not worry about being an hcp short if P limit bids, since the hand indicates up to a 4 level bid anyway. And you are looking at a potential slam hand here. You need info.

[gwnn]

VM1973: you did not misunderstand my post, but I misunderstood the opening post - when white vs red I would always bid 4♠

[gordontd]

John Collings was "supposedly" a strong player?

He's one of the players I've heard it attributed to, but not the only one.

[the hog]

Yes, 1 spade regardless of vulnerability. Why would you preempt when you have spades and can overcall any other bid anyway. If ops want to go to 5 they are probably set and your p will know to lead a spade. Open one to find out what P has for points and suit, lest HE get preempted by ops. (Knowing you opened he may be able to overcall them whereas he may not be so inclined if they open with a preempt.) You can know you can always go to 4 sp anyway if needed, at no more risk than opening at that. Likewise you need not worry about being an hcp short if P limit bids, since the hand indicates up to a 4 level bid anyway. And you are looking at a potential slam hand here. You need info.

 

Why would you pre empt? Because opening 1S and bidding 4 later in the auction shows a better hand for most players. I guess opening 1 on this and then bidding 4 later is ok if you are playing with yourself.

[Scoti]

Then you preempt Yourself out of knowing if you have slam chances since your p Will think you have a weak hand to open 4 spades. This is not a weak hand. Not to anyone who uses distribution counts. But I do agree with you that the hand can bid by itself. (Which is exactly what a preempter is doing, taking his P out of the equation and guessing he might make 4 or need to stop ops from contracting, so it seems strange for you to be the champion of P rights, lol. The difference being, he is taking a shot in the dark that is not necessary to make) . Bidding 4 later "showing a better hand" makes no difference here since opener captains this hand, not P. Which is really what you are objecting to. Not opener "playing with yourself" as he would be if he opened 4 spades.

[bill1157]

I wasn't necessarily in favor of opening 1♠, but was interested as to whether that was a serious option. People do, after all, open with 9 points sometimes with something like: AJxxx.Axxxxx.x.xx. I suppose that hand has two places to play etc. so maybe it is better for 1S versus the hand in question.

Having opened 1S, you would not jump to 4S on the second round obviously.

 

Bill

[VM1973]

Since you seem to be big on math, I expect you can make a pretty close estimate of the odds that the ♠AK will cash when defending a suit contract. Please do so and let us know the results.

According to my calculations the suit combination in question will produce, on average, 1.223 defensive tricks.

 

That doesn't count trump promotions, forcing defenses or other possibilities.

[VM1973]

No-one seems to have mentioned the old story of a (supposedly strong) player passing a hand like this and, as all four of them were putting their hands back in the board, asking his partner what he had held. "Oh, just three bare aces". I guess they deserved each other.

 

btw What is the Ogust response that shows a solid seven-card suit?

To answer your question, 3NT.

 

Additionally, I should like to point out that your partner will have 3+ card support for you 65.63 percent of the time. Accordingly opening 2♠ in no way rules out reaching 4♠ but also preserves the possibility of reaching 3NT.

[mikeh]

To answer your question, 3NT.

 

Additionally, I should like to point out that your partner will have 3+ card support for you 65.63 percent of the time. Accordingly opening 2♠ in no way rules out reaching 4♠ but also preserves the possibility of reaching 3NT.

65.63%

 

Either you are funnier than I think you are capable of being, or you are nuts.

[billw55]

Additionally, I should like to point out that your partner will have 3+ card support for you 65.63 percent of the time. Accordingly opening 2♠ in no way rules out reaching 4♠ but also preserves the possibility of reaching 3NT.

You lost me there. Are you saying that when you hold a 7 card suit, partner will also hold 3 or more 65% of the time? That obviously cannot be right. In fact it feels suspicious even for a 6 card suit.

 

edit: yeah I guess mikeh is right, is has the sound of a joke. Good one :lol:

[daveharty]

Bidding 4 later "showing a better hand" makes no difference here since opener captains this hand, not P.

Disagree with this. The one with more complete information about the partnership assets captains the hand, not necessarily the opener. Since 1S-1NT-4S (for example) generally shows a certain type of hand, and one that's better than this, it's easy to imagine a scenario where your passed hand partner would make a slam move after that start to the auction.

[ggwhiz]

No-one seems to have mentioned the old story of a (supposedly strong) player passing a hand like this and, as all four of them were putting their hands back in the board, asking his partner what he had held. "Oh, just three bare aces".

 

The player had 10 running spades and I believe it was Al Roth?

 

At a Regional, Doug Fraser once overcalled 1 diamond with 1 heart on 9 solid, AQJx, void, A intending to bid a graded grand slam force next and convert to spades.

 

He played it there opposite the stiff K of hearts and went down.

[sfi]

The player had 10 running spades and I believe it was Al Roth?

 

I was told it was Bobby Nail.

 

Bridge urban legend?

[mikeh]

The player had 10 running spades and I believe it was Al Roth?

 

At a Regional, Doug Fraser once overcalled 1 diamond with 1 heart on 9 solid, AQJx, void, A intending to bid a graded grand slam force next and convert to spades.

 

He played it there opposite the stiff K of hearts and went down.

Doug's one of my regular partners, and is known for telling stories on himself...always an endearing trait. My favourite, which he told me within minutes of the end of the match in which it arose, came some ten years or so ago and from the round-robin at the CNTC (the canadian team trials). RHO had in essence driven to 7♥ opposite an opening hand that had described short hearts. Doug made the standard expert lead of a small trump from his two small, eschewing the alternative lead of a diamond away from his Queen.

 

Thus he was surprised when the dummy hit with a heart void and the diamond Queen.

 

 

I gather declarer was very surprised to make the contract when his hearts were AKJxxxx opposite void :D

[the hog]

To answer your question, 3NT.

 

Additionally, I should like to point out that your partner will have 3+ card support for you 65.63 percent of the time. Accordingly opening 2♠ in no way rules out reaching 4♠ but also preserves the possibility of reaching 3NT.

 

You are incorrect. 3NT shows AKQ to 6, not 7

[the hog]

Disagree with this. The one with more complete information about the partnership assets captains the hand, not necessarily the opener. Since 1S-1NT-4S (for example) generally shows a certain type of hand, and one that's better than this, it's easy to imagine a scenario where your passed hand partner would make a slam move after that start to the auction.

 

3 points

1) Who says responder won't have more complete information and "captains the hand?" You sound like Gee

2) The comment was in context of partner not making much noise, if any, and opener then bidding 4 by himself.

3) In answer to 1S-1NT-4S 1NT bidder making a slam try - hardly! Opener has denied holding a stiff and probably holds a 7222. (No auto splinter).

[nige1]

John Collings was one of Britain's finest players. AFAIR, in the European Teams Championships, at favourable vulnerability, under the old scoring, John held solid ♣, John's LHO opened 2♣ and his RHO gave a positive response, so he tried a psychic 4♠ jump overcall with doubleton ♠ Tx. Unfortunately his partner, Jonathan Cansino (another superb player) took him seriously and, holding ♠ Qxx, raised to 7♠ as an advance sacrifice. Opponents doubled and John had to play well to salvage a couple of tricks. LHO switched to a cunning small ♠ from ♠AKxx but John rose with dummy's [sP}Q

[daveharty]

3 points

1) Who says responder won't have more complete information and "captains the hand?" You sound like Gee

2) The comment was in context of partner not making much noise, if any, and opener then bidding 4 by himself.

3) In answer to 1S-1NT-4S 1NT bidder making a slam try - hardly! Opener has denied holding a stiff and probably holds a 7222. (No auto splinter).

1. I didn't say responder won't have more information. In fact, he frequently will. I said the one with more complete information "captains the hand", and the only reason I used that terminology was because I was quoting Scoti.

2. I realized what the context of the comment was. I was stating my belief that Scoti's assertion that "bidding 4 later 'showing a better hand' makes no difference here since opener captains the hand, not P" wasn't necessarily accurate, especially for those who use the jump to 4M (after opening 1M) to show a specific type of hand.

3. I wasn't aware that 1M-1NT-4M guaranteed, or even suggested, a 7-2-2-2 hand. Even if that were the case, however, I can imagine hands where I would want to make a slam try as responder; specifically a hand that had a 3 card limit raise or something similar. Not everyone plays Drury. I'm sure you are correct that the frequency would be pretty low, but again, this specific example was just contrived on the spur of the moment to illustrate my point about responder not necessarily being a non-party in the auction after opener jumps to 4M. I'm sure there are better examples.

[the hog]

"3. I wasn't aware that 1M-1NT-4M guaranteed, or even suggested, a 7-2-2-2 hand" It doesn't necessarily. I said this is the most likely holding. Opener won't have a singleton as most, strong partnerships play autosplinters on this auction.

[chasetb]

At a Regional, Doug Fraser once overcalled 1 diamond with 1 heart on 9 solid, AQJx, void, A intending to bid a graded grand slam force next and convert to spades.

 

He played it there opposite the stiff K of hearts and went down.

That's crazy. First, someone should have called the director, because that hand has 14 cards. Second, that's crazy even by my standards. Just bid the AQJx suit naturally and then Exclusion KC if I could (if not, blast 6 or 7 depending on your luck. If it were today, I would bid 6 and probably go down).

 

On this hand, I feel that you have 7 sure winners and can maybe develop an 8th trick in Clubs. This screams opening 4♠ whether or not you play namyatS

[bill1157]

You are incorrect. 3NT shows AKQ to 6, not 7

 

I know this is probably true, but it sure seems too restrictive. Why couldn't it also show a weak 2 with most of the strength outside the suit?

[gwnn]

Because you can say it's a good hand with a weak suit :)