Will you even think about this one?

lets us assume (unless your 4h bid is strictly conventional) your p will
not bid 4h needing you to have 3 aces to make game for your 12 14 nt
(unless they are preempting with a very weak hand - xxxxxxxx xxx xx.

Your 3 aces and 4 hearts are huge for partner and any reasonable 4h bid will probably
have little trouble making 5h. The problem is 5H has to right close to 70% of the time
to be right

650 vs 500 +4
650 vs 200 +10
-200 vs + 200 -9
-200 vs + 500 -12

Opps chances of making 4s are very small and at -25 the occurence is mainly diluted
due to relative obscurity. 5h does eliminate that worrisome -25.

Is there any way to have it all??? nige1 suggests

4N

and the imp scoring tends to agree with him. A spade lead (a huge favorite) will
score up for our side 2 spades 5 hearts and 2 aces needing only 1 more heart or
1 side trick to make 10 tricks. This bid completely eliminates the worrisome
-25 and will probably score ten tricks far more often then hearts will score 11.

we will probably go -200 anytime p has made a hugely preemptive call since
they will pull (4sx or 4n) to 5h but those hands are probably less than 10%
and we will never set 4s two tricks anyway so -9 is our worst result there. The
rest of the time (when we dont go down 1) we will score up somewhere between
+ 3 and +10 with 4n having to be right only about 60% of the time to break even impwise.

IMO 4n=10 5h=8 x=5 p=0(it only costs 0/1 imp if the opps can make it and picks up 2 to
(6 when they dont and making will be rare)

Ah, but partner may not be looking to make 10 tricks or be 500 into game. They may be hoping to make 9, undoubled (-100 into -110/120/140). They may be hoping that they pass it out and it luckily rolls. Especially in a strong-NT field, they may be playing a "last guess" game, where they should be +EV even in a prima facie -EV hand because almost everybody else's auction is going to allow the opponents to show their suit at the 1 level, and they have to go 4.

I think with AK-seventh and out, "double-wants-sacrifice" will be nice from partner's end; but I don't think I can afford to pass it around to find out.

I'll double; I'm going to play partner for a "last guess" hand, and they guessed to go minus (likely). Maybe they guessed right; but 11 tricks in a "shut up, partner" hand is an awfully tight window to hit. I'm expecting 6-to-some-strength and a card; if it's the AK or AQ, we've already lost unless we are 650 or 800; if there's a heart loser, there's a good chance there's maybe 4 losers, and with a more revealing auction, they'll find the better lead. An advantage my weak NT partnership has is that we play 2-level transfers and South African Texas, so I have the added knowledge that partner thinks her hand is more of a surprise than mine. That could easily be heart-to-the-A, singleton to the ace, ruff, other ace, ruff - a magic 1100.

I've been known to be a pessimist, though.

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