Hoping for The Best

28th October – Board 15: N/S Vul. Dealer South.

	North: S 10 H Q J 9 8 7 6 2 D 9 C A Q 7 2
West: S K J 8 7 H K 4 D 10 8 4 C 10 9 5 4		East: S A 5 4 H A 5 3 D A Q 6 5 C K J 8
	South: S Q 9 6 3 2 H 10 D K J 7 3 2 C 6 3

Preemptive bids are designed to cause headaches for the opposition and often one has to take a leap in the dark and simply hope for the best when defending against such a bid. Such was the case with the East hand on the deal above when North made things difficult by opening 3H third in hand. As a general rule one should put partner with about a seven or eight count when considering coming in over a preempt and with any balanced hand of about 17 points or more 3NT is often the right answer. I think it should have been on the featured hand when the bidding would proceed as follows: -

West	North	East	South
			No
No	3H	3NT	End

How the play goes would depend a great deal on what South chooses to lead. The singleton heart works best for the defence, but with every finesse in sight working declarer should have no difficulty in coming to at least nine tricks. For the record I play that if my partner overcalls a preempt with 3NT then: -
a) 4C asks for four card suits upwards
b) 4D and 4H are transfers to 4H and 4S
c) 4NT is asking for aces on a sliding scale, and
d) 4S is a quantitative raise to 4NT
This last bid is redundant in a natural sense because spades are shown via a transfer. And as partner might be overcalling with a 17 count or a 23 count it is important to have a limit raise.