[plaur]

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2♠ is a standard weak two.
How much is our hand worth and what do you bid? Is it close?
Does form of scoring matter?
Does it make a difference whether you partner has agreed to play lebensohl? (this is BI !)

[Codo]

I would treat this hand as a one suiter, cause 4 ♥ is our most likely game.
Obviously, I am too strong to pass ,so 3 or 4 ♥ looks right. Both bids have their upsides, I would go with 4 ♥. Partner will not raise 3 ♥ with say xxx,Kx,xxxx,Kxxx.

[ArtK78]

There are many ways to evaluate the strength of a hand.

Standard point count evaluation shows that this hand has 15 HCP - certainly well above average. The fact that you have 6-4 distribution with a strong six-card suit makes this hand even stronger. Also, you have no minor honors in your short suits, so little is wasted. All in all, a fine hand.

Evaluating by loser count shows that this is a 5 loser hand - one loser in each of spades, hearts and diamonds and two in clubs (loser count has a maximum of 3 losers in a suit, one for each of the A, K and Q that are missing up to the number of cards in the suit). A 5 loser hand is a very good one opener (7 losers is minimum, 6 losers is good, 5 losers is very good, and 4 losers is maximum - just short of a 2♣ opening).

Another way of determining the trick taking potential of a hand is to try to see how many tricks this hand is likely to take if you put it opposite a 4333 zero count. For this purpose, assume the partner's 4 card suit is in the worst place possible for your hand - diamonds. Opposite a 3343 zero count, you can reasonably expect to take at least 7 tricks and possibly 8. You should always make 5 hearts and the two black suit aces, and, if hearts are 2-2 or clubs are 3-3, you will take an extra club trick. That is a very good hand.

What do you bid? I would bid 3♥. Partner should expect that you have a very good hand to overcall at the 3 level over a preempt. He will strain to bid a game with more than one useful card. And you probably need at least 2 useful cards in partner's hand to make a game.

I don't think this hand is worth a double followed by 3♥. That would show about the same hand with the ♣K instead of the ♣10 - a hand where you might expect to make a game if partner has one useful card.

Lebensohl is not relevant here, and the form of scoring is also not relevant here. I would bid 3♥ at any form of scoring.

The only possible relevance of Lebensohl is that if you double and partner does anything other than relay to 3♣, you will know that you probably have a game. However, since you will have to bid hearts over partner's call (presumably 3♦) partner may get too excited, thinking that you have an even better hand than you have. So I don't see the point of doubling, and, therefore, Lebensohl doesn't matter.

Edit - Codo says that partner will not bid 4♥ over 3♥ with xxx Kx xxxx Kxxx. I think he should.

[aguahombre]

ArtK78, on 2012-March-13, 08:00, said:

Codo says that partner will not bid 4♥ over 3♥ with xxx Kx xxxx Kxxx. I think he should.

I agree with Codo. Over an opponent's opening preempt, we expect our partner to have some random 6-9 as a mimimum, and act on that assumption to start with. If partner has that expectation or less, he shouldn't push forward.

Because of that, I would choose 4H here. Doubling would bring Leben into the picture, but it would also bring confusion. Depending on how the continuations go, pard might expect a different strength or shape.

[HighLow21]

Here are my opinions on the questions you posed:

plaur, on 2012-March-13, 07:45, said:

How much is our hand worth and what do you bid? Is it close?

It is worth a heck of a lot more than 15 HCP would suggest. You have 6-4 (powerful) shape, a great suit, and not a single wasted honor. It is close, but the choice is between 3♥ and 4♥. I would bid 4♥ personally. But if partner is good enough to realize that K♥ is worth gold, and that honors outside of spades are much more helpful than ones in spades, then 3♥ is enough.

I like to use the concept of "perfect minimum" here. On the auction, assume the 2♠ bidder has about 9 HCP. We have 15, so there are 16 remaining in the deck for partner and LHO. A normal assumption in competing over a preempt is that partner has about 8 HCP, which in this scenario is half of the remaining HCP. Let's say partner is a bit below that with 6 HCP, but has the perfect 6 as given by Art above. You would want to be in game, wouldn't you? Then bid it if partner is unlikely to know how good his perfect 6 is, and bid 3♥ otherwise.

I realize partner's true minimum is 0 HCP, but playing like that is just scared bridge --> especially at these colors.

plaur, on 2012-March-13, 07:45, said:

Does form of scoring matter?

Yes. I'd bid 3♥ at Matchpoints and 4♥ at other forms.

plaur, on 2012-March-13, 07:45, said:

Does it make a difference whether you partner has agreed to play lebensohl? (this is BI !)

As Art pointed out, Lebensohl is not relevant on the auction given so far.

[nigel_k]

I would bid 4♥.

Some people need a pretty strong hand to overcall at the three level when opponents preempt, but I am not one of them. I want to get into the auction if I can and would do so with a hand quite a lot worse than this. The corollary is that I need to bid 4♥ when I have this much. To be honest I didn't even notice there were only 15 HCP until I read the oher comments and I think people would do better on hands like this if they didn't bother to add up their HCP at all.

[aguahombre]

IMO, the evaluation of the direct-seat overcaller should be independent of conditions/form of scoring. Making as practical a bid as possible when room as been taken away is more important. Perhaps partner can use the conditions with certain advancing hands to make a choice.

[mgoetze]

Possible bids and why they are all bad:

3♥ - an understatement of our strength, we might miss game.
4♥ - our hearts are just a wee bit weaker than we'd like them to be for this, and we won't get to clubs if we belong there (it is not hard to imagine 6♣ being a possibility.)
Double (followed by bidding hearts) - a slight overstatement of our strength, the auction will get awkward if partner bids diamonds.
4♣ (showing clubs and hearts) - we've got the right values for this bid but it overstates our clubs and understates our hearts, again risking the wrong strain.

I think I will bid 3♥, but it's really a toss-up. The nice thing about 3♥ is that if partner makes any kind of positive noise I will feel completely comfortable stepping on the gas and driving to slam.

It probably depends on the opponents' preempting style more than form of scoring. For instance, if the opps are big believers in suit quality and the 2♠ bidder is practically guaranteed to hold ♠KQJ in this spot, I would be more inclined to stretch to double. I'm still not sure I would do it, though.

Anyway, I really couldn't fault anyone for choosing any of the 4 bids I mentioned.