[euclidz]

BBO (New partner) opened (first in hand) 4C what would you expect him to hold?

[blackshoe]

Clubs.

[ggwhiz]

blackshoe, on 2015-March-12, 17:06, said:

Clubs.

Gerber?

Zero defense and zero interest in 3nt. Classically 8 clubs missing the Ace or King with lots of short petunia suits or 7-4 with a club suit like that and out. W v R might be missing the Ace AND King.

[Zelandakh]

They did hold clubs too, albeit not a hand most would start with 4♣...and the score was +8 IMPs. Interesting to hear what the story behind this one is going to be.

[euclidz]

Due to my lack of experience or lack of study, opening 4♣ or 4♦ first in hand is not an opening I have ever encountered. Is it standard Acol bidding or a partnership agreement? At the time I took it to be strong i.e. long clubs with an optimistic chance of making 4♣ so I raised to game and it made. Nothing was said my partner but for the benefit of my education I would like to know . . .

1. Is it standard Acol bidding or a partnership agreement?
2. What would be expected to hold with that opening?

[Zelandakh]

euclidz, on 2015-March-13, 02:43, said:

1. Is it standard Acol bidding or a partnership agreement?
2. What would be expected to hold with that opening?

1. Yes, it is standard bidding in Acol, as well as most other systems. Indeed, standard is for all 1st, 2nd amd 3rd seat openings at the 3, 4 and 5 level other than 4NT, 5♥ and 5♠ to be preemptive. I would guess that most Acol players do not know the standard meanings of these 3 either!

For reference, the Acol 4NT opening is a specific ace ask - partner responds 5♣ without an ace, 5NT with 2 (or more) aces and bids the suit of the ace (5♦, 5♥, 5♠ or 6♣) with one ace. 5 of a major is traditionally a hand that has zero losers aside from the ace and king of a long major suit - partner is expected to raise one level for each of these 2 cards that they hold.

2. Others covered this already - a weak hand with long clubs.

A couple of other points. First of all, there are a number of conventions that can modify the meaning of a 4♣ opening. You do not need to wory about this as agreement is required before using them - but it is good to be aware. Secondly, BBF has a forum for questions of this nature (Novice and Beginner Forum). The advantage of posting there is that answers tend to be particularly helpful and considerate of the poster raising the question. Up to you though - use your best judgement!

[euclidz]

Thank you for answering my question.

I would like to further pursue the question hopefully without the discourteous, arrogant condescending suggestion that this is a question of or posed by a novice.

It seems to me that opening the bidding holding 10hcp it is statistically likely that partner will have 10hcp . . with a partnership holding of 20hcp and an 8 card suit opener should expect that his partnership holds the stronger hand and so opener’s ‘pre-emptive’ bid of 4C is more likely to hinder/disrupt his own partnership bidding rather than the opposition.

What am I failing to see?

[mikeh]

euclidz, on 2015-March-13, 11:41, said:

Thank you for answering my question.

I would like to further pursue the question hopefully without the discourteous, arrogant condescending suggestion that this is a question of or posed by a novice.

It seems to me that opening the bidding holding 10hcp it is statistically likely that partner will have 10hcp . . with a partnership holding of 20hcp and an 8 card suit opener should expect that his partnership holds the stronger hand and so opener’s ‘pre-emptive’ bid of 4C is more likely to hinder/disrupt his own partnership bidding rather than the opposition.

What am I failing to see?

What you are failing to see is that in comparison to most of the posters here, you are in fact at a novice level of knowledge of the game. Telling you that this sort of question, which is a perfectly valid question, is more suited to the beginner/novice forum, should be seen as helpful, not as discourteous, arrogant or condescending. There are definitely those amongst us, including me, who are more than capable of being any or all of those things, but as someone who regularly reads Zel's contributions, I have never seen anything by him that would merit any of those adjectives.

Please, don't take offence at this post. I still remember my introduction to duplicate, more than 40 years ago. I had read a book (!) and had played in a regular game in the Engineering Student Lounge, and thought I was hot stuff, so I called up the bridge club in my area and asked about playing. The owner suggested, wisely, that I come down on the Tuesday night, because that was the game for inexperienced players. I was offended, and insisted on playing on the strongest night. Well, it didn't take long to realize that I was completely out of my depth

My point is that you may well see yourself as far beyond the novice or beginner level, but the reality is that, unbeknownst to you, there are vast areas of the game that others understand and you don't....not because you are stupid, or unable to understand, but because you haven't been exposed to them.

For example, very few BBF posters or readers wouldn't know what a 4♣ opening bid meant in a naturally-based system, whether that be acol, SA, 2/1 GF, etc. The fact that you hadn't previously seen such a bid is a pretty good indication that your experience is, compared to most here, very modest.

Anyway, welcome to the forums, and please, please don't give up on posting here simply because you misunderstood Zel's intentions.

As for your followup question, it would be uncommon for most experienced players to promise as many as 10 hcp for a 4♣ pre-empt. In addition, while hcp are important, their use as a measure of 'whose hand is it' becomes ever the less reliable as the hands become more shapely. You may already have experienced this but, if not, you surely will with more play: hands on which both sides can make slams! I remember a 13 table movement in which 12 of the scores were 1660....6 for N-S playing 6S doubled and 6 for EW playing 6H doubled, both contracts cold.

Why is that relevant to your question? Because with a very shapely hand, with relatively modest hcp, we want to jam the bidding as much as we can, consistent with partnership expectations. Especially when we hold a minor, we risk being outbid, on shapely hands, in the majors even if the hcp are roughly equal around the table. Moreover, while it is true that if we hold 10 hcp in first seat, the average expectation is 10 hcp for each of the other three players, in actual play such a balanced distribution of hcp is unusual. There are two opps who could hold strong hands, and only 1 partner.

That 1 partner can maybe guess correctly if our pre-empt is fairly narrowly defined, while the opps are reduced to guessing at a high level. I could write a lot more about preemptive bidding, but I've already gone a bit overboard responding to you so I will stop now

[billw55]

euclidz, on 2015-March-13, 11:41, said:

It seems to me that opening the bidding holding 10hcp it is statistically likely that partner will have 10hcp . . with a partnership holding of 20hcp and an 8 card suit opener should expect that his partnership holds the stronger hand and so opener's 'pre-emptive' bid of 4C is more likely to hinder/disrupt his own partnership bidding rather than the opposition.

What am I failing to see?

If the hand that Zel linked to is indeed the hand under discussion, then one thing you are failing to see is that opener's partner (you!) was dealer and passed. This is now a third seat opening, and not first as you stated in the original post.

In first or second seat, I would probably open 1♣, then rebid clubs as many times as needed. In third however, one knows that partner's values are limited, and therefore one can preempt with moderately stronger hands, without worrying too much about hindering/disrupting your own side. In third seat, with a 8-card suit and nonvul against vul, I would probably open 5♣, with 4♣ as my second choice.

[ahydra]

billw55, on 2015-March-13, 12:30, said:

In first or second seat, I would probably open 1♣, then rebid clubs as many times as needed. In third however, one knows that partner's values are limited, and therefore one can preempt with moderately stronger hands, without worrying too much about hindering/disrupting your own side.

Indeed - if you think about it, roughly speaking you have a 33% chance of pre-empting your partner's strong hand when you open at a high level as dealer, 50% in second seat, and 0% in third seat. So it follows that in first seat we can pre-empt on most hands that fit our agreement, but no more. In second seat we need to be a lot more careful and really "have our bid". And in third seat, we can do whatever we like (within reason).

Example: both sides are not vulnerable.

QJ10xxxx QJxx x x

In first seat we can open 3S. We have a 7-card suit with some honours and some good shape. Partner if he has a strong hand should place us with something like this, maybe a touch more, so we should land in the right place most of the time; the value of jamming the auction to cause opponents to mess up pays off for the times when we miss a slam or whatever.

In second seat we risk pre-empting partner - our suit isn't that great, and QJxx hearts might fit with his heart holding or prove a useful defensive asset. So downgrade to 2S, or maybe pass.

In third seat, anything goes - so open 3S or even 4S if that's your style.

ahydra

[Vampyr]

euclidz, on 2015-March-13, 02:43, said:

At the time I took it to be strong i.e. long clubs with an optimistic chance of making 4♣ so I raised to game and it made.

Due to incredibly soft defense.

[eagles123]

Vampyr, on 2015-March-13, 13:17, said:

Due to incredibly soft defense.

that's putting it mildly

[wank]

Another great advertisement for british bridge

[eagles123]

wank, on 2015-March-14, 11:26, said:

Another great advertisement for british bridge

I think You'll find that in Britain we invented Benji Acol, so please cut out you're crude comments