Overboard

21st Feb – Board 14: Love All. Dealer East.
The hand shown below was strange in that West had to push his side overboard in order to get a good result – and even then there was no guarantee.

When partner opens at the four-level you must not expect a good hand opposite, although at times it can be easy to get carried away. As a rule of thumb give partner an eight-card suit headed by the top three honours  - or compensating values - but with the rest of the cards distributed 2-2-1. If you do that you can see that West has no reason whatsoever to get excited on the hand shown, with the most likely outcome that game will fail by a trick or two rather than there be a slam in the offing. Of course North will spring to life with a 4♠ bid – which is cold as it happens – and now West will presumably add one for the road, with the likely outcome of playing there doubled. But if West were to act immediately and wrongly, say by wheeling out the Old Black, then North might well keep quiet. 5♥ would fail by a trick or two but would most likely not be doubled.