MSC problem discussion

[rbforster]

A recent Master Solvers problem from Bridge World was approximately "What do you open at first seat Unfavorable with this?"

 

♠Ax

♥Jx

♦ATxxxxxx (8)

♣x

 

Top marks and the strong consensus was 1♦, with a few passers receiving reasonable scores but a small minority. I have nothing against 1♦, but I sometimes overthink these things and wondered if I couldn't get some good results out of opening 2♦. Sure it's too strong for a "weak two", but with lots of shape and few points in your hand, you'll have another chance to bid and you're conveying your approximate values (if not shape) to partner in case he has game/slam aspirations. Also, if it's the opponents' hand, you'll have started with a preempt that can get them to the wrong strain if you bid again since both majors are in play. For example, I think these auctions could work out well:

 

2♦-(X)-P-(2N)-4♦, when advancer uses Leb (invitational with 1+ major) and either hand is 4-3 majors

2♦-(P)-P-(X)-4♦, when either hand is 4-3 majors

2♦-2N, then do something unexpected like 4♦ or maybe 3♣ (bad/bad) and then surprise over 3♦ with 3♠, raise 3N to 5-6♦, etc

 

It seems like the opponents will have any easy time finding their major fit over 1♦, while if their points are unevenly split and/or they don't both have both majors, they may guess wrong under pressure if you start 2♦. Sure this will miss a few light 3N hands where partner has the right 12 count and won't go over 2♦, but you really do need a fair bit of help to run your suit especially if spades gets attacked. Also, you'll no doubt save yourself some embarrassing auctions where partner doubles their game on your open strength and you have to either pull at too high a level or hope you've got more than 1 trick on defense.

 

Thoughts?

[sfi]

Sure this will miss a few light 3N hands where partner has the right 12 count and won't go over 2♦, but you really do need a fair bit of help to run your suit especially if spades gets attacked. Also, you'll no doubt save yourself some embarrassing auctions where partner doubles their game on your open strength and you have to either pull at too high a level or hope you've got more than 1 trick on defense.

 

Thoughts?

 

Two quick points. You don't need much help to run the suit - xx in partner's hand gives you good chances for 7 diamond tricks. And if partner doubles their game after you bid diamonds a couple of times, I'm going to be happy with expecting two tricks out of my hand.

[aguahombre]

A happy byproduct of NOT having 2D available is not being tempted to use it with from 5 to 9 cards in the suit and with 6- to 10-loser hands.

[Cthulhu D]

2D seems ludicrous. What would you open if two small diamonds were clubs? If the answer is 2D, how is partner even going to understand what you have?

[mike777]

1d what is the ?

 

 

we dont have a problem most of the time....a few times yes......

[MrAce]

Are you serious about suggesting to open weak 2 with 8 card suit + 2 aces ?

[rhm]

I also read the discussion and was a bit surprised by moderator Kit Woolsey, who Rosenberg assigns to the "Preempts always work" brigade.

But surprisingly Woolsey was with the vast majority opening this hand 1♦. I wonder what he would do at the table.

 

Sure a 1♦ opening looks safe and is unlikely to cause trouble for your side, but neither is it likely to cause much trouble to your opponents.

For my part, I do not like to open at the one level with an eight card suit, unless I am strong enough to insist on game thereafter.

At "Unfavorable" I am with the minority and would open 3♦.

Can this backfire? Of course it can, like almost any non ideal preempt. If that bothers you, you preempt far too little.

I would bet that the frequency the preempt here will cause trouble to the opponents far outweighs the times partner will misjudge due to my side ace.

Partner is not likely to sacrifice at "Unfavorable" even after my preempt, but the second ace will help us make any contract my partner might consider.

The second ace will also be helpful, should opponents decide to play for penalties, lured by the vulnerability. They may well be in for a surprise.

I would be far more concerned if my hand had support for a side suit major. The second ace bothers me little.

And let's not forget missing first round controls are generally good reasons for an opponent not to come in at a high level, which increases the payoff from preempting.

 

Rainer Herrmann

[Phil]

I remember answering 1♦. Too much defense for a preempt and too much playing strength for a pass.

[rbforster]

Are you serious about suggesting to open weak 2 with 8 card suit + 2 aces ?

Yes, seriously. Let's suppose we played transfer preempts at the 2 level and this showed a regular weak two (no strong option). Since 2♣(showing ♦) is essentially forcing, you could open with a hand like this and then bid again to show some unusual hand. Here, with everyone at the table having diamond shortness (1-2 cards each most likely) and 31 hcp unaccounted for, my claim is that a 2♦ preempt is essentially forcing so you can play the same way if you want. Whether or not that's a good idea, well, that's why I started this thread.

 

The cardinal rule of preempts is that you don't bid the same hand twice. But maybe you can bid again with the extra two cards in length you didn't promise the first time?

[aguahombre]

Not nice to spring Transfer preempts on us after letting us vent about the natural weak 2D proposed in the OP. Which do you play? What you stated originally, or what you changed to now that the idea of opening 2D with this hand has been seriously discounted?

 

If you do use xfer 2's, and would use 2C with this hand, perhaps the disclosure should be different.

[rbforster]

You don't need much help to run the suit - xx in partner's hand gives you good chances for 7 diamond tricks.

I thought a while about this and it's not as good as you think. Sure you've got good chances if partner has Kx or xxx, but only counting the 2-2-1 and 3-1-1 splits, the relative odds are 60:40 respectively. This means that partner has a stiff 46.7% of the time. In those cases, partner will need a huge hand to cover you - the K♠ to preserve your entry (or Q♠ and spades lead away from the K), as well as double stops in both other suits to keep them from being run when lead and continued after losing the diamond trick. But even with xx (32% of the time; 40% for 2 and 8% of that he has the K), your side still needs double stoppers in all suits since they lead a suit and get to continue it after you give up a diamond. That's nearly 80% of the time 3N is going to have problems unless partner has a huge hand.

 

My point is that if you're giving partner something like:

 

Kxx

AQxx

Qx

KQxx

 

just so you can make 3N, that's enough that he can bid it over 2♦ too. If you want to make 3N with a light partner, you really need no diamond losers, which means either Kx♦, xxx♦, or stiff K♦ and the K♠. Then you only need

 

xxx

Axxx

Kx

Kxxx

 

but of course you aren't going to find 3N over 1♦ then either.

[rbforster]

Not nice to spring Transfer preempts on us after letting us vent about the natural weak 2D proposed in the OP. Which do you play? What you stated originally, or what you changed to now that the idea of opening 2D with this hand has been seriously discounted?

 

If you do use xfer 2's, and would use 2C with this hand, perhaps the disclosure should be different.

You misunderstood what I wrote. I'm not saying play transfer preempts (I don't). It's an example about how forcing bids can contain unexpected hands, and how, under the right circumstances like this hand, normally non-forcing bids can be viewed as nearly forcing as well. Here we don't know whether it will be us or opps that will feel compelled to bid over 2♦, but I really really doubt it's going 2♦-AP.

 

If you knew someone was going to bid over 2♦ and give you another chance to bid to show a hand like this, would you feel as bad about opening 2♦? That was my point.

[benlessard]

Im 99% in the preempt camp when these type of hands arrive. Here however this hand has serious drawbacks, ive done sims about hands like these (A empty suits) and my conclusion was that opening 3D isnt really dangerous but it tend to push opps in 3NT rather than in 4M, and when they bid 3NT its no surprise that 3Nt making vs 4M going down often happen.

 

One of the main benefit of preempt vs 1 level opening is that your grabbing space and hope they will not reach optimum contract, but when your preempt help them reach a good 3Nt vs a bad 4M its a big loss for preempt effiency.

 

I believe both 1D and 3D are ok.

[aguahombre]

One of the main benefit of preempt vs 1 level opening is that your grabbing space and hope they will not reach optimum contract.....

Some have found that grabbing space from partner (depending on the partner) is a good thing, also. They prefer to bid mostly from one side of the table. It makes sims easier as well when they don't need to take three other people into account (only the other 3 hands).

[ArtK78]

I can see reasonable arguments for opening 1♦, 3♦, 4♦ and 5♦, but not 2♦.

[pigpenz]

sort of similar to the hand Bessis had in the Bermuda Bowl, he overcalled 2♣

on Axxxxxxx and another ace got to 5♣ claimed for only 5 or so the commentators said.

someone else overcalled 2♣ on akqxx and 14 hcp and went for 800.

 

1♦ is fine, I agree pre empts tend to push opps into places sometimes they wouldnt

find on their own

[MrAce]

 

The cardinal rule of preempts is that you don't bid the same hand twice. But maybe you can bid again with the extra two cards in length you didn't promise the first time?

 

When are you planning to bid again ? You hold an 8 card suit, at which level are you expecting the biding come in front of you ? Seriously ? If i was forced to make a guess i dont expect anything less than 4-5 level majority of the time when i hold an 8 card suit. You will have to probably bid 5♦ on your next turn, or just pass it out.

 

I am not saying there is proper way to bid those hands which warranths a good ending, but if we are going to bid 5♦ later, why not bid 3 or 4 or 5 ♦ now ? Why after they already represented each other a suit or suits and some strength ? None of the 3 or 4 or 5♦ bids are good either but at least we are making a bid to the level that we are more likely belong to. As Rainer said if you are not concerned about 2 aces then this is at least a 3♦ opening, if you are concerned about 2 aces then open 1♦. Tbh, the idea that suggests opening weak 2 and planning the rebid later shows extra 2 cards in the suit and an extra ace, sounds weird to me. And i still cant see the upside of it while i see a lot of downsides, but hey it may work of course. Thats my thought.

 

Also, i assume you are in the same camp with those who plays weak 2 bids are more constructive than weak 3 bids. To me only difference is the 3 level preempts has 1 more card than 2 level preempts.

[Charlie Yu]

Why not 4♦ if it shows exactly this hand? It seems way too weak for 1♦, and partner will never knows what to do if you open 2♦ or 3♦ instead.

[cherdano]

This was one of the most boring MSC problems ever - seems like an obvious 1♦. Why do we have to see it again over here?

[S2000magic]

I saw this problem in MSC as I was flying to LAX from Charlotte, NC. I picked 4♦. When I get some free time later this week I'll read the arguments for other calls, but this looks like a preempt to me.

[gszes]

opening 1d might be "safe" but I find it difficult

to see it as "effective". What can you possibly do

after opening 1d that will help p make rational

decisions about the bidding?? Given that p can't make

rational decisions how can you trust their judgements?

your bidding goes 1d 1s 2d 3n are you going to bite the

bullet and pass or are you tempted to overrule???

If you open 1d opps bidding p passing are you willing

to remain quiet or will you try a delayed preempt??

What if p x in a competitive auction??? can you pass?

IMO opening 1d with this collection leads to far more

nonsense than starting with a simple preempt.

 

 

Opening 3d has one major benefit here. It shows a

1 suited hand with little defense and around 8 tricks

at this vulerability. Seems to be exactly what you

have so go for it. P will know you either have

exceptional length or a trick on the outside for this

bid and hopefully they can make a more reasoned

decision on how to proceed.

 

2d is out of the picture because it makes the range

of a 2d bid so wide as to make it impossible to use.

 

4d is a close approximation but has 2 drawbacks.

 

1. It bypasses 3n (this is a rather large problem)

2. The 2 aces make it a low % the opps have a high

level contract so making a huge preempt at this vul

short of playing tricks seems overly aggressive.

[rbforster]

Just to clarify a few things.

 

2d is out of the picture because it makes the range

of a 2d bid so wide as to make it impossible to use.

I am not proposing that one bid 2♦ on everything from 6322 KQTxxx♦ and out, to an 8 bagger with two aces. I am suggesting that you might have a playable system in which you bid 2♦ on the "normal" hands (5-10 pts, ok 6 card suit, no 4cM), and also on some freak preempt hands that might normally bid 4-5♦ except they have some flaws (too good to bypass 3N, too many aces make slam more likely than partner would expect, etc). The latter hand type would bid again if possible.

 

When are you planning to bid again ? You hold an 8 card suit, at which level are you expecting the biding come in front of you ? Seriously ? If i was forced to make a guess i dont expect anything less than 4-5 level majority of the time when i hold an 8 card suit. You will have to probably bid 5♦ on your next turn, or just pass it out.

I was planning to bid 4♦ if the opponents have not clearly found or shown their major suits at the point were I can bid, such as the auctions listed in OP. It's possible that it comes back to me at 4M (and I'm passing for the same reasons I'm not opening 5♦), but with both majors in play and the opponents expected to have diamond shortness, I think it will be much more likely that they will start slow with a double to keep both majors in play. I wouldn't suggest doing this if my suit were a major, for example, because (among many other good reasons) there's no major-suit ambiguity to the opponents' takeout doubles - a factor that makes preempting more effective in diamonds than in other suits.

 

 

i assume you are in the same camp with those who plays weak 2 bids are more constructive than weak 3 bids. To me only difference is the 3 level preempts has 1 more card than 2 level preempts.

Yes, I am in the camp that 2 level bids are more constructive than 3 level ones. This is why, if I didn't bid 1♦ on this hand (which is fine), I would bid 2♦ to keep partner in the loop about forward-going possibilities.