How high do you pre-empt?

[AL78]

♠8

♥QJ8763

♦T3

♣KT97

 

Matchpoints, green against red, two passes to you. Your call?

[paulg]

3♥ in both first and third positions at this vulnerability.

[jillybean]

I don't preempt in 1st seat with this hand, we require 2 of the top 3 honors

3rd seat 3♥ looks normal

[Gilithin]

3rd seat green I guess we are picking between 3 and 4. I suspect 4 is more likely to draw a good transfer than have the extra level of preemption be helpful, while 3 might just draw a heavy 3♠ from LHO. So I think 3 is probably the better option but I am not overly optimistic about winning this hand in the auction regardless of what we call. There might even be an argument that psyching a 1♥ opening is the best way of keeping them out of a good game but that obviously is risky as the extra space definitely will help them.

[AL78]

I tried an aggressive 4♥ which worked out badly:

 

[hv=pc=n&s=st632h2da9874cj63&w=s74hak54dkj52c842&n=s8hqj8763dt3ckt97&e=sakqj95ht9dq6caq5&d=s&v=e&b=3&a=pp4h4sppp]399|300[/hv]

 

That got us a magnificent 1/8 MPs. The full traveller:

 

4♠E 12 -680

3♠E 12 -230

3NT E 11 -660*

4♠E 12 -680

3♠E 12 -230

 

*Declarer got a club lead into the AQ so I don't know why they didn't manage to make 12 tricks by knocking out the ♦A.

 

Normally I wouldn't open as aggressively as that but decided to have a go after some inspiration on this forum.

[Stephen Tu]

Why are you blaming your aggression? Blame the incompetence of your allies in the EW field. It shouldn't matter how many you open, E/W should not be missing game, or blowing the trick if they find 3nt. That's outside your control, all you can hope for is that these E/W are equally generous when you reach their table and get them as opps instead of allies. It may not even out in a single session but will over multiple sessions. I see this in lots of your posts; you get bad scores because your comparison field is abysmal (and often tiny therefore more random, since random outliers represent huge chunk of percentage on a board), or get bad scores because your partner did something rather nuts. Just worry about what are bad decisions by you, and try to get better partners or try to train up current partners.

 

But I agree 3H looks normal to me.

 

[Cyberyeti]

I would expect in any decent field the whole field to be in 3N+3 or 4♠+2, difficult to see how any W with a pulse doesn't ensure his side are in game of some sort.

 

2♥(or multi)-3♠-P-3N

3♥-3♠-P-3N or a direct 4♠ overcall

4♥-4♠

 

Opening 1♠ might cause issues against poor opps

[DavidKok]

I agree with everything Stephen wrote, and would have opened 3♥.

[blackshoe]

Heh. If I had been West at this table, I would have opened 1♦ (Precision) at my first turn to call. :-)

[P_Marlowe]

Hi,

 

2H or 3H, mixing it up is usually a good idea.

There are hands, when 2H works better, if the points are more evenly distributed,

and they make an overcall / inv. raise and stop, and there are hands, where taken away

the space works better, ..., when 4S goes down, and than there are hands, where it does

not matter, as it should be here.

 

With kind regards

Marlowe