Mark:
The goal of a preemptive bid is, while giving up some
constructive accuracy, to deprive the opponents of constructive accuracy. The
first question is whose hand is it more likely to be? There's a big difference
what your order is in the auction. If you are dealer, you know nothing but your
13 cards. What's favorable about preempting with the North hand (if they were
dealer) is that spades takes up lots of bidding room. When both opponents'
hands are potentially strong you like the odds of getting in their way,
compared with your partner being strong.
When you are in 2nd position, as in this case, you
know that your RHO has passed. LHO and partner are equally likely to have a
strong hand and by preempting you could block your side as likely as the other
side. It's a roll of the dice, but I tend to be least enthusiastic about
preempting in 2nd position. A secondary consideration in deciding on a preempt
is when your suit is a major but you also have sort of a nice holding in the
other major. Still, the powerful honor holding in spades makes a preempt more
attractive.
If I were dealer, I would preempt that hand. The
question is whether to open 3 or 4. In 3rd position I would absolutely preempt.
In 2nd or 4th position it's a close decision, but I'd be inclined to preempt.
It wouldn't surprise me if some excellent players would disagree with me about
2nd and 4th seat. I'm confident 1st and 3rd would be close to unanimous.
As the cards lie, 3 spades is the perfect contract.
If played and defended competently, it will make exactly 9 tricks, so who's to
argue with that? No better contract is available. Even though there's an 8 card
fit in both majors, spades is easier to play with these cards.
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