High level misunderstanding

[RSClyde]

Bidding over a high preempt is never an exact science whether it's yours or theirs. You have to work on frequency grounds. When you have a suit you're prepared to announce as trumps at the 4 level, the number of hands that partner wants to overrule that on, but doesn't want to bid 6 is very small, and you live with that.

 

4♠ for us is keycard.

This is getting very frustrating as we are just repeating ourselves:

You know the image in your mind of how few hands actually want to play a new suit, that is precisely what I'm seeing when I'm thinking of how many hands you have where partner you have a side suit and partner divines what you want and you wouldn't have just guessed it right anyway.

 

I AM thinking of frequency. You have a large hurdle because even if hands where you want to use these bids are 10 times as frequent as hands that you want to play a different suit, you still need the bid to be useful a reasonable percentage of the time. Not being able to bid your suit, when that's what you have, rates to be very bad. However when you have a fit, you would have guessed it right more than 50% of the time, I would say significantly more. Plus you aren't completely blocked from asking for information: you could just RKC: even if that isn't your first choice. I mean if you have a side suit trick source, you can generally ruff it out anyway, it seems that side suit controls will often matter more than a side suit fit, you'll have some DEPO type response after they compete. Furthermore partner won't always know what you need, so he will get it right less that 100% of the time. So the question is what's the difference? I would say pretty small, as in less than 10%. Thus making it useful no more often that the "I want to play my own suit" hand. I don't actually have any hard numbers here, no one does. But we are certainly not gauging this the same way.

 

Playing 4♠ as key card seems absolutely crazy. I mean I play kickback, but can't I just play 4nt as that here? I mean isn't the ability to play spades worth surrendering one extra step?

[Zelandakh]

A 4♥ opening by partner pretty much ends the discussion of choice of trump suit. After that opening, the only options are some number of hearts or a slam in notrump.

 

The only exception would be if responder jumped to a slam in another suit. Unless you assign a specific meaning to that call, it should be to play.

How do you play: 4♥ - (P) - P - (X); P - (P) - 4♠? (or 5m instead of 4♠ for that matter)

[ArtK78]

How do you play: 4♥ - (P) - P - (X); P - (P) - 4♠? (or 5m instead of 4♠ for that matter)

This is an entirely different situation. I can't imagine that there is anyone who would not play this as natural and to play.

 

When the opps go out of their way to tell you that you have made a mistake, and your hand is consistent with the opps analysis, it is best to listen to them.