[PhilKing]

FWIW I think action doubles are pretty terrible here - you can make them as frequent as you want but it makes them even worse.

Lightner is less frequent but the gains are huge.

[helene_t]

The reason why partner didn't sac himself might be because he expect them to have slam. The reason why he didn't double might be because he didn't want them to run to 5♣. So I don't think we should sac very often.

In any case, with three trumps, a side singleton and an ace we have a lot more defense than we might have. So if anything, we could venture an action double.

I would pass, though.

[billw55]

The OP seems to be a strong player and wise poster. For most others I would suspect resulting.

[CSGibson]

JLOGIC, on 2013-July-25, 02:48, said:

Well to change gears and play devils advocate, Chris is thinking he has far above average OFFENSE than expected. I doubt he has 4 card suits often but I would expect xx xx KQJxx xxxx to be normal given his style. He has a lot of offense for 2D but chose to bid it since 3-3 in the majors with a pretty constructive hand.

Thus, our save is likely to be cheap enough (down 3 or less) opposite what partner bid 4D with. If we are not like 40% + to beat them it is right to bid. Given that partner didn't double, we are not that likely to be 40 % to beat them. Is that right Chris?

That's what I was thinking, yes. Though partner expects a 6 bagger normally (this is slightly less aggressive than my normal partnership), I don't have to have all of my values concentrated in my suit, so partner can't be sure saving is right if I have some extra defense around - I thought 4D was inviting me to the party, especially because we play transfer McCabe over X, letting partner direct me to specific values. With that in mind, I thought that passing would be clear at imps, but that bidding was worth thinking about at matchpoints.

[nige1]

CSGibson, on 2013-July-24, 15:37, said:

Matchpoints
You play undisciplined weak 2s in this seat position/vulnerability. Opponents are not well known to you (you are out of your playing area), but are fairly competent by reputation.
I guess what I'm really asking is whether the 2♦ opener has rights in this auction, and if so, whether he should excercise the right to sac?

---

IMO Pass = 10, 5♦ = 9. Close decision:

• Argument for pass: Eleven tricks are a lot. Partner could have raised to 5♦ rather than 4♦. You are maximum with defence (top diamonds and potentially useful knave and a ten). Your-side cut away opponents' room for exploration so they have made the wrong guess. Bidding 5♦ opens up options for opponents (Forcing pass, Double, 5♥, 5♠, slams).
• Argument for bidding: I agree with a weak 2♦ but your bid is "pure", you have 6 diamonds rather than 5, and your values are mainly in your bid suit. Partner's advance sacrifice is just a co-operative suggestion (partner won't often bid 4♦ then 5♦ unless he is walking the dog).

[mycroft]

Yeah, I was thinking this version of undisciplined - opener could be JTxxxx and some cards, instead has a pure hand (for a change, says partner).

Upside - it is a pure hand, and the cards I would otherwise have outside aren't "potential losers".
Downside 1 - we have a huge trump fit, so the AK aren't really pulling their full weight (they save 1 diamond loser), and the other 7 cards in my hand are losers partner has to cover with a preemptive call. With KJxxxx, say, there's a chance my outside cards help fill in partner's suit for more than one trick.
Downside 2 - it's really not likely we can *make* 5♦, and AK means that if there's no void, I have a defensive trick partner is hoping for, but by no means sure of. I can easily see the same defence JL sees - diamond to King, club to Ace, club ruff, and a trick in the wash. Or even diamond to King, club forcing the A from declarer (who can see this coming), and eventually losing the KQ or KJ and a trick in the wash.

How often will partner push to the 4 level white on red - and not 3 or 5 - when he doesn't think there's a shot at setting 4M? Partner's given them a "last guess", and they picked one of the guesses. I'm going to hope, like him, that they guessed wrong.

[MrAce]

This topic made me think " When we preempt what should makes us happy ?" (Other than finding a juicy save, which i believe is not the business of preemptor. Or the donkey brings a bag of gold one day and brings all kinds of ugly stuff the rest of the year)

I know most people loev it when they preempt and enemy can not get in and miss something or even bigger than something. Imho preemptors should be happy when opponents bid rather than pass because this is when you make money in the long run, eventhough it may not be as satisfactory as playing something cheap when they have huge score available but passed. But this is very rare situation, when we preempt and everyones passes, we know that it won't be good for us very often.

On this hand we preempted, caught LHO loaded, pd boosted up the preempt but cautiously only at 4 level, now we saw that LHO is loaded much more than we though. At 4 level he told his pd about spade suit and a fat hand. Just for this i would prefer sitting on 4♠ on any given day. I don't even know whats going through pd's mind and what kind of evil set up he is going after, if any, when he bids 4♦. Or maybe his 4♦ preempt was pure but opponents thought he was setting them up, or they just simply could not find their best spot under these circumstances. ( I know it will be a shocking surprise for us BBF members since we always find an auction to find the right spot in forums when we see both hands, and when we see only one at the end we always find fault at pd's previous bid(s) . But in real life this happens more frequent than forums.)

Bidding 5♦ now i may bail - 500 instead of -620/650 or it may be -800 or it maybe -300 instead of +100. But there must be something seriously wrong with pd's 4♦ or pass over 4[sp, if they are making 4[sp] and we are going down only 2.

[ArtK78]

Mycroft alludes to a principal that should apply in this situation but is apparently not being applied by most posters. When partner raises your preempt to the 4 level, who is in charge? Is the preempter's partner saying "I know what to do if they bid again?" Or, as Chris Gibson suggests in his latest post, the 4 bid is partner's way of suggesting that we offer our opinion of whether to bid on or defend.

I have always thought that a raise of the preempt to the 4 level put responder in charge of subsequent events, in which case pass is the only option available. But clearly not all of the posters agree.

[gnasher]

PhilKing, on 2013-July-25, 05:37, said:

FWIW I think action doubles are pretty terrible here - you can make them as frequent as you want but it makes them even worse.

I agree with that, but I'm not thinking about bidding 5♦. If your only options on this hand were to bid 5♦ and to make an action double, wouldn't you prefer to be able to double?

[PhilKing]

gnasher, on 2013-July-25, 12:38, said:

I agree with that, but I'm not thinking about bidding 5♦. If your only options on this hand were to bid 5♦ and to make an action double, wouldn't you prefer to be able to double?

If my only two options were Double and 5♦, I would Pass.

[barmar]

CSGibson, on 2013-July-25, 09:22, said:

I thought 4D was inviting me to the party, especially because we play transfer McCabe over X, letting partner direct me to specific values.

That's a significant difference, since partner's 4♦ has some extra nuances.

[MrAce]

ArtK78, on 2013-July-25, 11:55, said:

Mycroft alludes to a principal that should apply in this situation but is apparently not being applied by most posters. When partner raises your preempt to the 4 level, who is in charge? Is the preempter's partner saying "I know what to do if they bid again?" Or, as Chris Gibson suggests in his latest post, the 4 bid is partner's way of suggesting that we offer our opinion of whether to bid on or defend.

I have always thought that a raise of the preempt to the 4 level put responder in charge of subsequent events, in which case pass is the only option available. But clearly not all of the posters agree.

Well said. I think it depends on the environment that you are used to..

For example when bergen raises and all that 4 card support preempt bids, whether a free preempt or in competition, was fashion in Turkey, people started to take advantage of these bids when their opponents always had their 4 card supports. They basically spotted the stiff or void immediately in pd's hand etc etc. It was extremely predictable. Then again preemptors adjusted themselves as well, to prevent this, they started making random preempts with sometimes 4 and sometimes 3 card supports.

This cat and mouse roles kept on changing depending on what the general behaviour was leaning towards. If you noticed in past topics i lean towards passing take out doubles much more frequently than others. Phil even made jokes about it. It is not that i am barking mad, it is because thats what i usually faced when my opponents preempted. Things like opening 3 with 6 cards and other one is raising with 2 cards were not unusual at all in the fields that i played. Of course those of us who are trying to play bridge had to adjust ourselves to this environment changes.

But imo, when you forced someone to 4 level, vulnerable just to be able to say "i have a fat hand and spades" you accomplished your mission most of the time. No need to try for an overkill. It may not be this hand but it is the way that works better in long run. Just like you open perfectly normal 1NT and pd bids 3NT 27 hcp combined, balanced vs balanced, no 8 card major fit and you go down, when another prick makes some imaginative bids and finds a superb 5m. you still keep on bidding 3NT with same hand next time and expect the odds to support you. Having said that, if your preempt was very unusual one but you chosed to bid that way anyway, then you may consider doing something different, but whether this hand qualifies for it or not is very arguable.

[mikeh]

Without meaning to offer anything new on the OP, beyond the points made earlier, I want to throw out an idea I played in one partnership: we used transfer advances of our pre-empts over a takeout double, and one reason was that we could use, here, 4♣ and 4♦ as raises: one assumes captaincy and the other transfers it.

Thus 4♣ would suggest that responder was interested in opener saving if opener had a suitable hand, while 4♦ said that opener was to do nothing: any subsequent action was the responsibility of responder.

We had to give up on the power redouble, but I can't remember the last time we needed or got a gain from redoubling for business.

It also allows 4th seat the ability to occasionally double with a hand too weak to have bid the suit otherwise.

It rarely arose in real life, altho we played it for several years (we played on average about 35-40 sessions a year) so I can't speak to whether it was a net winner or loser. We both liked bidding toys, and we used transfers in a very large number of situations, so the memory load was insignificant.

[Fluffy]

no real need of power redouble since pass + double is also penalty and preemptor won't bid freely