What does a three bid look like?

I was playing with some students the other day and this hand came up for North

I had ♠ 72 ♥ KQJ1098765 ♦ A8 ♣ 6

North was in second chair with nobody vulnerable.  This is not a normal opening three bid.  It is much too good.  With eight solid hearts and the diamond ace she has eight sure tricks even if her partner has nothing at all.  That is just too good.  There are two rules to think about when you decide to preempt.  One is the Rule of 2 and 3.

Rule of 2 and 3

When preempting you can overbid by two tricks when vulnerable and three tricks when not vulnerable.  So for a three level preempt

Not vulnerable you would have 9 minus 3 tricks or six tricks

Vulnerable you would have 9 minus 2 or seven tricks.

The idea behind this rule is that you can never go for a penalty greater than five hundred.  This is a very conservative rule and most players are more aggressive these days.  As Marshall Miles says in his great book Modern Constuctive Bidding.

“When I discovered that most modern players were preempting like that (much more aggressively) I decided to become a modern player myself, especially not vulnerable).

Still if you want to play the Rule of 2 and 3 it is not terrible.  Mark on your convention card your preempts are fairly sound and enjoy. 

Law of Total Tricks for preempts

Basically the idea is that when your side has nine cards in a suit you can compete to the three level, eight cards in a suit to the two level etc.  So you assign partner about 1/3 of the remaining cards assuming he gets his fair share.  So if you have a seven card suit you would expect partner to have about two.  With nine cards in the suit between the two hands “the law” says you can compete to the three level.  Based on that with a weak hand and

6 card suit	Bid 2
7 card suit	Bid 3
8 card suit	Bid 4

This is not a bad rule to follow but be careful not to be too aggressive and bid a really bad suit when vulnerable.

So what should you do with eight sure tricks and a eight card suit.   Based on the Rule of 2 and 3 you have enough to bid 4♥ even if you were vulnerable.  Based on the law of total tricks your length is good.

So opening 4♥ is a reasonable bid.  Opening 3♥ understates the playing strength of this hand by about two tricks.  What about opening 1♥.  There is nothing wrong with that either.  You have an opening bid with ten high card points and that great eight card suit.  You even have some defense with the diamond ace.  It has the disadvantage of allowing the opponents in the auction but the advantage of telling partner you have some high cards.

I prefer 4♥ but if you were playing with me an bid 1♥ I would be a happy camper too. 

Advanced students might want to consider a convention called NAMYATS.  Namyats happens to be Stayman backwards.  (Both conventions were invented by the same man, Sam Stayman).  Namyats uses the bid of four clubs to show a very good preempt of four hearts and the bid of four diamonds to show a very good preempt of four spades.  With a normal preempt you just open four hearts or fours spades.  Namyats tells partner you have 8-9 tricks in your hand.  On this hand you are good enough to open four clubs Namyats.  If you are interested this convention is very well described in the book 25 More Bridge Conventions Your Should Know by Barbara Seagram and David Bird or follow this link

Definition of Namyats on the web