PhilG007, on 2015-June-02, 23:26, said:
If partner is following the rule of 2 and 3 his pre-emept should be showing 7 playing tricks. You have
4 quick tricks with the two AKs so you are justified in raising to 5
♦ It must be remembered that
when a player pre-empts,he is saying loudly and clearly that he is interested in one suit only...the one he pre-empted in...so bidding 3
♥is just a waste of time....partner is more than likely to have a singleton
in the suit. Bidding 5
♦ will also make it almost impossible for the other opponent to enter the auction...even
if he holds a rock crusher...which is very likely given the bidding so far(!)
I think we'd all like to know what you are smoking and how much it costs - because it must be really really good for you to come out with this nonsense.
Your argument that partner is providing 7 playing tricks doesn't really make sense, because what might be a lot of tricks in one strain may not be very many in another. Hands fit to a lesser or greater degree, you can't just say: he's got this many tricks, I've got this many tricks; so let's add them together and see where we get! For 5
♦ to make is requiring quite a lot. Give partner xxx x AQJTxxx Qx (this is a very good hand!) and game will only make when
♦Kx is onside. There are a whole bunch of reasonable 3
♦ openers that give you poor play: QJx x AJT9xxx Kx, xx xx KQTxxxx Kx, x Qx AKxxxxx xxx et cetera...for game to make you need only two losers in clubs and trumps. That's asking for a one loser trump suit and a club stiff/ace. To me, a one loser trump suit and the
♣A is a one level opening, so you are banking on your partner having a one loser trump suit (not set in stone), and a club singleton. Once you've given yourself a club singleton, 4
♥ is basically made, partner has 2+ trumps pretty much always, so you can score 6.5 natural trump tricks, 2 spades, a ruff and either a diamond trick, a 3rd spade trick or a 2nd ruff. So pretty much any hand where you make 5
♦, you can make 4
♥.
Your second point about pre-empting the opponents is from planet Mars. You said it yourself: we have 4 quick tricks, and you think partner has a singleton heart! So it looks like we have several cashing tricks, before we even get started with the possibility of getting diamond ruffs! I don't know what rock crusher they can have apart from a huge single suiter in clubs, how can you have a rock crusher with no honours in the major suits, and missing at least a couple diamond honours too? What do you think rock crusher means? This isn't a pre-emptive auction, this is our hand.
I think I would probably bid 3
♥, hopefully if they have a doubleton trump we will have some game prospects (trump behaving, club shortage, diamond ace), and if they rebid 4
♦ hopefully we have a chance to make that too. I think pass is close behind. 4
♥ can't be an option because it has all the disadvantages of 3
♥, with very few gains (concealment of information is one thing, but if dummy has a void/single trump the person will be able to double with QJTx(x) of trumps anyway).