[michel444]

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Do you think its wrong to make a pre opening with a side 4 cards major ?

[akwoo]

I wouldn't do it vulnerable in second seat with a decent side 4 card major.

Nonvulnerable in 1st seat maybe.

[akwoo]

I wouldn't do it vulnerable in second seat with a decent side 4 card major.

Nonvulnerable in 1st seat maybe.

[gszes]

suit quality should be the number one factor here. QJT8xxxx would be sufficient. The main reason suit quality is so important is that even if there is a spade fit it may be far too easy to lose the heart tricks in a spade contract.

[LBengtsson]

With one opponent having said they do not have a opening bid, 'Pass' is acceptable with this hand. If you feel you cannot do that then 1♥ is the lesser evil bid than 3♥ here.

[michel444]

akwoo, on 2022-October-01, 17:54, said:

I wouldn't do it vulnerable in second seat with a decent side 4 card major.

Nonvulnerable in 1st seat maybe.

I do not trying to say it was a good normal Desicion.
there are at least 6 loser
♠ 2 loser
♥ 2 loser
♦ 1 loser
♣ 1 loser
I may lose more trick with very bad break
But I put Pressure on south who is facing a passed hand .
in the END the ♥ split normally
West ♥T
south ♥ K x
north ♥ A9x
I just made 9 trick in Heart with +790
Michel

[Gilithin]

I imagine you feel pretty good about this hand. You did after all end up with 100% for it. But improving as a bridge player sometimes involves looking beyond the immediate score. To take an easy example on this hand, switch the South and West hands and switch ♣A6 with ♣QJ between them. Now your side is making 6♥ most all of the time but there is little chance that you are getting there after 3♥. And that is quite aside from more obvious reasons such as missing 4M when partner has a good hand that will pass 3♥. Moreover, the real reason you scored so well is because North made a typical beginner's mistake and passed a takeout double with ♥Axx and ♦KT9xxx, something you will see less of as you move up the ranks. That error was then compounded by South making a very strange decision during the defence.

The simple truth is that vulnerability matters somewhat in preempting but position matters even more. Second seat I would usually not open this hand at all, even not vulnerable, although I daresay some posters here would and they may well not be wrong. The odds are 50-50 on who you are preempting so you generally want your second seat preempts to be fairly pure. First seat though this would typically be a 3♥ opener except at green, where 4♥ looks appealing. Third seat, I would additionally try 4♥ even at Love All. So the issue here is not the side 4 card major, nor even is it the vulnerability. It is the combination of those factors combined with the position that makes preempting somewhat unappealing. To be good at bidding, you have to maximise your returns across the whole range of possible hands, not just on a specific layout. And particularly not when that layout is primarily a win because of inexperienced play. If you fail to analyse in this way, you will eventually reach a plateau where the opponents are just not bad enough to score well against any more and you will be left only with the downsides.

One final tip, if you check the monthly averages and see that one of your opponents averages worse than -2 IMPs/board with a MP% of 31%, you should probably consider any excessively good boards against them suspect. The board after this one, where they played a trump suit of Qxxxx opposite AJT8 by playing low to the 8 should have given you ample notice not to put too much stock in the results.