A reader writes:
“I am looking for a bidding structure over opponents 4-level preemptive bidding. Which doubles are penalty and takeout? How should I overcall and respond in these auctions?”
4-level preempts are annoying. Accuracy largely goes out the window at this level. Your bids will be approximate bashes and educated guess. With judgment and some methods you will get them right more often than not, but you can not avoid some disasters.
Any system to handle 4-level preempts involves trade-offs. On certain hand types your system will help and on others it will hurt. In preemptive auctions, the reward for the correct bid is largest when both sides can make a game. In turn, this occurs most often when you are short in their suit. Effective bidding is at a premium when you are short in their suit. When you can defeat their contract, you’d still like to get it right, but your judgment errors will cost you slightly less. So we are willing to trade accuracy when we have length in their suit to gain accuracy when we hold shortness.
Our methods are built around this idea giving us many ways to bid with shortness in their suit, at the cost of having to pass sometimes with length in their suit: Click here to continue Reading