The push double

A situation often arises in competitive bidding where one side pushes the other side into (usually) a game contract and then the pusher doubles.

Like many aspects of bridge logic, this one can be interpreted by looking at the scoring table. Let's take a look at an example:

South suspected that he could not defeat 3♠️ so decided to push the opponent into a game that he hoped he could defeat. If the push was successful, then plus 50 would be a much better matchpoint score than -140.  There would be absolutely no good reason to risk the double here. If the push was unsuccessful, then, without a double, -420 would probably have company. But -590 would clearly be a lot worse than the -170 that the opponents were probably going to make without the push.

So, it seems to me that the double cannot be to increase the penalty. Often going from 50 to 100 doesn't even change your matchpoints! It must be lead-directing. But to what?

Without the double, you were going to lead a club, right? If partner was happy with you leading a club, why would he double? 

So, what's the best lead here? Not a trump--that cannot be right. How about a diamond? It could be right but it doesn't look right with this holding. So, you lead your singleton heart, partner wins the ace and gives you a ruff. We will come to a spade, a heart, a heart ruff and we must score the ♦️K. +100.  Dummy is void in clubs so your trumps will be drawn before you can score a heart ruff (if you led a club).

Actually, I told a little white lie here. Partner didn't have the Ace. But declarer failed to go up with dummy's ace and partner won his King and you still got your ruff.

Sound unlikely? Well, yes. Declarer went up with dummy's ace, drew trumps and bye-bye heart ruff. Scoring -590 for 0%.  Pushing them without doubling would have scored 16%. Failing to push? Hard to know. Dummy had six spades, a club void, the ♥️A and the ♦️Q. Would they have raised to 4? Quite possibly not. So, the push strategy was misguided this time.

But the principle of the "push double" being lead-directing is eminently sound.

Believe partner, not the opponents

Here's an ordinary hand: ♠J765 ♥A3 ♦T864 ♣J93. It's an IMP pairs and no-one is vulnerable. You are playing vanilla 2/1. Partner is the dealer and starts proceedings with 1♣. After a pass, you bid 1♠. LHO doubles this and partner redoubles.  This is a support redouble so it says nothing about strength, simply that partner has exactly three spades. A support double mostly shows a balanced hand, but with the redouble, it's a little less clear since the opponents have claimed the other two suits.

The bidding continues with 1NT on your right over which you, naturally, pass, as does LHO.  Partner now doubles. What do you think is going on?

First, of all, you have to decide whether this is penalty or takeout. If it's takeout, what exactly would it be taking out into? LHO has both red suits apparently. Partner could be asking you to take a preference between the black suits, I suppose.

But, if you've been reading my stuff on penalty triggers, you will be in no doubt. Redouble is a penalty trigger. All subsequent doubles are for penalty. Added to that, RHO just made a competitive notrump bid and that's a trigger, too.

However, let's say that you've been reading lately that there's a kind of double called "intended-as-penalty." Partner expects you to leave it in unless you have an unbalanced hand. Would 5-5 in the pointed suits be sufficiently unbalanced? Maybe. It is IMPs. But the opponents are not vulnerable so, even in our worst nightmare, they might make an overtrick for 380.

There's another consideration. Partner opened 1♣ so either he has an unbalanced hand with 16+ and clubs, or a balanced hand with 18-19. Either way, I think we have a pretty good idea what to lead: a club!

You decide to show a weak, distributional hand, by bidding 2♦ and we end up in 2♠ making 170 for an average board. It's a shame though because we could have had 800 in 1NTX, 420 in 4♠, 430 in 3NT, or 920 in 6♣.

Here's the whole hand:

The moral of the story? Believe partner, not the opponents.

More on the penalty-oriented double

One of my more recent blogs was on the Penalty-oriented Double. I feel that this is a legitimate clade in the zoology of doubles.

Here it is in action:

What will you call? Partner is suggesting trying for 200 and that looks tempting. But, could it be that partner is expecting a bit more meat on the bone of your hand? You did make a 2-level overcall and you don't exactly have the goods, do you?

And, you know that partner has exactly three hearts (well, it's 90% certain) and less than opening strength. If you do take it out to 4H, how bad could things be? -300 and -100 are the likely results. OTOH, maybe we are due 200. But, think about it. How many diamonds are we getting? zero. Other suits? three? There's a very real possibility of ending up with -710. That's sure to be a bottom while 200 is almost certainly going to be a top. Do we want to be risking a bottom for a top? If we had a diamond trick, that would swing the pendulum towards passing. But as it is? I think pulling the POD to 4H is the best plan.

The results?  4DX= was worth zero match-points. 4HX-1 was worth 64%.

In case the link stops working at some point, your hand (white vs. red) is 87 QT762 985 AQJ. Partner deals and passes, RHO opens 1S, you bid 2H, LHO bids 3D, partner bids 3H, RHO bids 4D, passed to partner who doubles.

Partner's hand? AJT6 J53 7 KT973.

POD: Penalty-oriented double

Back in the early days of bridge there was the penalty double. However, people began to realize that it wasn't much use at low levels because you could rarely get rich even if they were psyching--they would just run to the real suit or otherwise escape justice. Thus the penalty double evolved into two clades: the penalty double and the informatory double (nowadays this is universally known as a takeout double).

It didn't take long for the takeout clade to further evolve into two sub-clades: pure takeout and "cooperative" doubles. The latter include all sorts of strangely named beasts: action, cooperative, competitive, etc.  The general rule (not very well described in the literature) is that the higher the level, the more tempted partner will be to leave it in. This latter form is at its most useful in matchpoint bridge because, if you can catch them speeding and get them down one doubled and vulnerable, it will beat any part-score you might be able to have made. 

I believe there are, however, two sub-clades of the penalty double:

1. pure penalty:  "don't take it out if you ever want to play with me again;"
2. penalty-oriented: "you're expected to leave it in if you have normal distribution, nothing that partner doesn't know about."

Actually, this latter type is perhaps more common than you think. It occurs any time you bid a game, the opponents sacrifice and the player in direct seat doubles. That player can never be sure that defending a doubled contract is the par result. What he means by the double is this: "From where I'm sitting, it looks like doubling is our best shot. Feel free to pull if your hand is more offensively oriented than I think it is."

But it might not be a clear sacrifice. Such situations may be somewhat rarer, but they are not unknown. An example came up just the other day in a pairs event. I will give you my partner's hand and the auction first: ♠KQJ8432 ♥T3 ♦Q ♣K53.

Both sides are vulnerable. Admittedly, not everyone will open 1♠ but I think it's the right bid, provided that you're willing to be a bit flexible later on in the auction. LHO overcalled 2♥ and partner raised to 2♠. RHO upped the ante with 3♥ and you made a preemptive raise to 3♠, showing six or more spades and presumably a hand that is on the weak side for an opening bid. LHO doesn't go quietly and bids 4♥. Partner doubles and it's back to you. Your call?

What do we know about the auction? The opponents are a self-described pickup pair and their profiles suggest intermediate. Do you think they have their bids? They might have stretched a bit, but nobody bids this way without something pretty good. What about partner's double? Is it a penalty double? I think it is. One of the "rules" that I like to go by is that once we've bid our suit three times, any double is for penalty. What could we be taking out into, realistically speaking?

So, what to do? Partner has 8-10 hcp and exactly three spades. He will never try to get a penalty in this situation knowing that our side has 10 spades. It's likely that partner has a relatively balanced hand, too, because with a singleton anywhere, he's going to bid 4♠ if he's at the max end of his box (5-10).

How many hearts do they have? Almost certainly nine. With a stiff (as noted), partner would have bid 4 himself (or passed). 

How many tricks to we have cashing? At most one spade and maybe a club. Partner should have a couple of sure tricks and maybe a third if he has AJ in, say, diamonds. Are we getting rich? At the very most, we might get 500 but 200 is more likely. Can we make game our way? Does partner have the spade ace? I think it's doubtful. With that card, and six points on the outside, I think double is an unlikely call. The spade ace will, essentially, be a bit of a waste, defensively speaking, given our own strong bidding in spades. 

What about "the law?" The strength appears to be well balanced between the two sides which is important for the law. We don't have a pure hand with good shortness (can't count the diamond queen for both), so it's possible that the law will be off a bit. Maybe 18 tricks instead of 19? If this is the case, and if it turns out that both sides can make exactly nine tricks, we should defend. What are the other possibilities (using my guesses for the probabilities)?

• 20 total tricks (15% likely):
• Both sides make game: par score +620 (pull)
• We make an overtrick, they an undertrick: +650 (pull)
• They make the overtrick: par score -650 (pull--unless we want to be -990)
• 19 total tricks (50% likely):
• We make an overtrick: par score +650 (pull)
• We make game: par score +620 (pull)
• They make game: par score -200 (pull)
• They make an overtrick: par score -650 (pull as before)
• 18 total tricks (30% likely):
• We make game: par score +620 (pull)
• Neither side makes game: par score +200 (pass)
• They make game: par score -500 (pull as before).
• 17 total tricks (5% likely):
• We make game: par score +800 (pass)
• We go down one: par score +500 (pass)
• We go down two: par score +200 (pass).

Just looking at the probabilities and following the LOTT, it looks like we want to pass 15% of the time and pull 85% of the time. 

Let's go back to partner's double. In the old days, we could distinguish between tentative penalty doubles and stand-up-on-your-chair-and-slam-the-red-card-down doubles (just kidding, of course). Is partner's double an absolute final decision? No, how can it be? The opponents have bid 4♥ strongly. They're not kidding around so they think they have a play for it. If partner has a heart trick coming, it must be available on offense, too. Why has partner doubled and not bid 4S himself? For the reasons given above: each side might have only nine tricks available, we almost certainly have to lose a spade and, likely, two hearts. Do we have the rest? Partner isn't sure. Basically, in this context, his "penalty" double simply says "I think this is our hand, I have a balanced hand, and they are probably going down." After all, it's very unlikely that opener is going to bid voluntarily again after this sequence. In other words, this is a classic POD situation.

It's decision time. Is there anything partner doesn't know about our hand that would justify pulling? Yes! We have a seventh spade! 

Partner's (my) hand: ♠T97 ♥J4 ♦AT63 ♣AT98. Leading the ♦A or underleading a club would result in down two for 500 and a 45% board. Leading our suit should have resulted in 200 and a 28% board. Neither of these would be total disasters. As it happened, we didn't set the contract, resulting in a 0% board.

So, there were 18 total tricks on the board. Not playing double-dummy defense would have resulted in 19 total tricks. 

Examples of doubling: good and bad

Starting with the bad. This hand was discussed on BridgeWinners. You hold ♠K862 ♥KQ4 QJ963 7 as dealer, all white, IMPs. Playing Precision, you open 1♦ and partner responds 1♥. RHO now doubles and you redouble to show three cards in hearts. LHO bids 2 ♣ and this is passed around to you.

Are you thinking of doubling?  I believe that there are three reasons that you should not double here:

• You have a minimum hand; partner has shown a minimum response (theoretically, you should only respond to 1♦ with 8 hcp but that's very old fashioned so, let's assume partner has at least 6 points). This is not necessarily your hand so making a cooperative double here puts partner under a lot of pressure.
• You have only a singleton club; if partner chooses to pass for penalties, the opponents will be playing at the two-level with an eight-card fit--that's anti-law.
• You have a seven-card heart fit since partner would have bid 2♥ if he had five and there's no reason to suppose that you have an eight-card diamond fit (you might but the way to find out is to bid 2♦ and see if partner lets you play it there).

The bottom line here is that this is the kind of hand that gets cooperative doubles a bad name. At the table, this hand doubled, partner left it in with a 9-count including KQ92 of clubs and the ace, third of spades. The contract made for -180.

OK, now let's go to the good example hand. This occurred in a daytime game today, playing with my favorite partner. Everyone is vulnerable (matchpoints) and LHO, the dealer passes. Kim bids 1♠ and RHO, a good "B" player, overcalls 2♦. Our hand is 875 KJT54 KQ9 J4. Some people might start with 2♥ but, in a competitive auction, I like to show support right away. I therefore bid 2♠. LHO and partner passed and RHO bid 3♦. Now, I doubled. The play was straightforward and we ended up with 500, for all the matchpoints.

So, why is this a penalty double rather than a cooperative (takeout-oriented) double? I explain this in Update on Cooperative Doubles. But, basically, I have made a limited bid (2♠) and partner has nothing extra because she passed. It's impossible that we have sufficient strength for a cooperative double (see the first bullet regarding the bad example above). Therefore, it must be a penalty double.

Note that RHO did nothing too outlandish. He had 16 high card points and a fairly good six-card diamond suit (missing the KQ, obviously, and the ten which his partner had along with two small). He was just unlucky that his partner had only two queens that were not much help.

Update on cooperative doubles

It's been some time since I last wrote anything on cooperative doubles. But I haven't been idle. I've been giving the subject quite a bit of thought.

In particular, I've been thinking about why we need cooperative doubles at all. And the reason is -- still -- that we want to compete without being unilateral about it. We want to suggest bidding on, perhaps in a new suit, or in a previously bid suit, but we're also open to penalizing the opponents.

So, the basic conditions haven't changed:

• extra strength (either in our own hand or in the partnership as a whole);
• relative shortness in the enemy suit (ideally a small doubleton);
• no obvious bid presents itself (such as raising partner's suit, rebidding our own suit, a new suit, or bidding notrump).

But I'm going to add one more condition:

• we are (still) competing for the contract.

So, what do I mean by this? Think about the following auction:

1♠ (p) 2♠ (p) p (3♣) X

What does double mean here? Can it be that responder wants to compete further and is asking opener whether he has a second suit or extra spade length for the purposes of bidding on? No. The spade partnership is done in this auction. Both players narrowly limited their hands: responder by raising to 2♠ and opener by passing the raise. Neither of them is interested in playing in a higher-level contract. Therefore, the double must be for penalties. This would be the same if there were two passes after the club bid and before the double.

How about this:

1♠ (p) 2♦ (2♥) X

There is a class of player that believes that, as long as the opponents are in a game force, they may make any bid they like without fear of punishment. But in this case, although we have committed to play at the game level, we are open to the possibility of a higher score on defense. So, this isn't a competitive auction -- or at least it won't be until we bid a game-level contract.

Double, therefore, means that the heart-opponent has made a blunder. Doubler's holding in hearts is sufficiently good (and correspondingly his holding in spades and diamonds are sufficiently poor) that he is offering an alternative to partner.

I call this type of double The Tentatively Penalty Double. It's intended as penalty but, with extreme distribution, partner can of course take it out. Simply noticing that we are red and they are white is not sufficient grounds to take it out. Both partners can see the vulnerability and both know that they expect to score at least 400/600 in their own contract, whatever that is. The double says "unless you have some distribution that I don't know about, please pass".

An example of extra distribution would be a third spade (responder was planning to bid spades at his next turn showing three-card support) or a six-card diamond suit. Even with those cards, however, responder might pass the double if his hand is, generally speaking, balanced.

So, let's add the following to our list of penalty triggers (notwithstanding that it may be acceptable sometimes to pull the double when we are committed to game or with unexpectedly wild distribution):

• Our side settles in a part-score or commits to bid a higher-level contract (with or without actually bidding it).

I'll call this trigger the known-level rule: we know that we're either satisfied with a part-score or we're committed to game. A commitment to a higher level contract can arise in several ways:

• We commit to a (possibly unspecified) game because we open with 2♣ perhaps, or responder makes a 2/1 bid, fourth-suit-forcing, etc.
• We commit to at least three of our major by a cue-bid of the enemy suit, a fit-showing jump, Bergen raise, etc.

This somewhat new rule (trigger) fits perfectly with the previously defined triggers. Cue-bids, jumps, fourth-suit forcing are already penalty triggers. So too is the so-called "dead auction rule": in a competitive auction we have subsided over a bid of the enemy suit. But partner ups the stakes and one of the opponents takes one more draft from the well. Now, our double must be penalty (as explained long ago). But it is now just an example of the known-level rule.

So, really the only change that I am proposing is to switch to penalty doubles as soon as our partnership commits to game or as soon as the partnership as a whole rests in a part-score. I think this rule also better reflects normal expectations of players who haven't specifically discussed these doubles.

There's another aspect of competitive auctions which is, if anything, an anti-trigger (so far, I have not admitted to such phenomena).  Assuming that we are still in a competitive auction, when the opponents jump the bidding, or raise their partner's suit, it is even more important to double cooperatively (i.e. takeout-oriented). Take this example which came up just recently (none vulnerable):

♠9 ♥JT872 ♦AJ92 ♣873

Pd  RHO  You  LHO

1♣   p   1♥  3♠

 X   p    ?     .

Are we in a competitive auction? Yes--partner is (almost) unlimited and so are we. Do we need help in finding our spot? You bet! Does it seem likely that LHO has lost their mind and jumped with a trashy suit? Not really.

Conclusion: there haven't been any penalty triggers and the opponents jumped (or showed a fit). When the opponents jump or show a fit, we need double as cooperative even more than usual because they've used up some of our bidding room.

If partner had four hearts and extra values, he'd be bidding 4♥ on his own. He must have only three hearts then (if he only had two hearts, he'd either be bidding a second suit or awaiting our reopening double which he'll pass for penalties). So, we can safely bid 4♥.

Turns out that doubler had a rather strong hand: 13 hcp with a very good seven-card spade suit. A strange call then (why does LHO want to preempt the auction when they have the spades and a good hand?). Par on the board is 4♥X down one which we should have reached (for 5 matchpoints out of 7). Unfortunately, the holder of this hand was not familiar with my system of cooperative doubles. We ended up letting them make their doubled contract for a bottom obviously.

The tentatively penalty double

I have written extensively about cooperative doubles before in this blog. Here's a situation where none of the penalty triggers had occurred but I didn't feel that my double in the West seat was purely cooperative (DISP) but certainly not purely penalty either:

Dealer: E Vul: NS	North ♠ 6 ♥ QJT76 ♦ Q862 ♣ 974
West ♠ J75 ♥ A3 ♦ T9 ♣ AKQJ83		East ♠ Q94 ♥ 95 ♦ AK543 ♣ T62
	South ♠ AKT832 ♥ K842 ♦ J7 ♣ 5
Bidding:	p 1S 2C p 2D 2S X p ?	HTML Bridge Hand Layout Creator

Clearly, East had some values for his 2D call. So, it seemed like it was our hand. But where to play it? I didn't have a spade stopper, I couldn't raise diamonds. I could take a unilateral view and rebid 3C and maybe that was best. On the other hand, this was matchpoints and +200, if it was available, would be a much better score than +110 or +130. With a decent stop in spades, partner could even take my double out into 3NT.

Had I opened 1C, heard partner bid 1D, and then heard 2S on my right, this would (for me, at any rate) clearly be a cooperative double. Yet, when we have both made bids showing decent to good suits and not been raised, the needle on the takeout to penalty meter swings over a little more towards penalty.

In my humble opinion, having more or less denied the ability to raise clubs on his previous turn, partner should have given preference to clubs (over defending 2SX). That would be a relatively easy 130. Better still would be to take out into 3NT which rolls, as it happens. What actually happened was that partner passed 2S, assuming my double was pure penalty. Deep finesse says that 2S is cold but I think we had some chances.  High club, two high diamonds followed by a diamond ruff starts us out with four tricks. The HA is still to come and, if declarer doesn't try to finesse against the queen, we would defeat the contract. But it was not to be. -670 was of course an absolute zero. The exact same zero as 2S undoubled would have been.

So, on balance, I think that double was correct, showing that it was our hand. But the idea of the tentatively penalty double needs to be better understood.

Using double or redouble to ask about partner's hand

Here's the type of auction for which many pairs do not have a good understanding of how best to compete:

The situation arises when West's bid is ambiguous (for example, it doesn't specify a suit, or shows only one suit of two). Click each bid to see its meaning. Is partner showing clubs? The majors? Could it be some sort of rescue request?

In my partnerships, this redouble has a very simple and clear meaning: "I have decent values and I'd like you to further describe your hand at your next turn." Without the redouble, South might bid a major and you (West) might feel that your hand wasn't good enough to bid 3♦. But partner is saying: I really want to know what your hand is.

This hand came up at a sectional tournament, playing against two good matchpoint players. I was East. South passed and West now bid 2♦. Two passes followed and now South decided to bid 3♣. This went pass-pass and I finished proceedings with double. We scored 500 (could have been 800) for a clear top. It turned out that North made a somewhat over-enthusiastic Stayman bid and South, expecting his partner to have a bit more, decided to bid his clubs with only an 11-count. Here is the whole hand:

It was good that we have the rule that all doubles after a redouble are for penalty, so there was no doubt what the final double meant.

The double can be used for the same thing. Here's an example using the same hand, just a slightly different treatment for the West hand:

Again, just to be clear, East's double says nothing about clubs—it asks partner to state which of the three hands he actually has: 2♥ would show both majors (pass or correct), 2♦ would show diamonds and pass would show clubs.

This seems like a simple, effective, agreement. Yet in my experience it is quite rare. Maybe even unique. Without it a distributional but weak responder can easily preempt the other side out of a good contract. Suppose in the actual hand (first example), North had simply transferred to spades with a 2♥ call. East doesn't double because his double would show good hearts. South bids 2♠. Is West really going to come in with 3♦? I don't think so.

A new species of double?

A couple of hands came up the other evening where competitive auctions arose in which I was forced to make a cooperative penalty double. Is there such a thing? I think so.

Let's revisit what a normal cooperative (or competitive double is). It's a call where a) we believe our side has the strength to compete; b) there is no other possible action because we have insufficient cards in our suits; c) we expect (60%?) that partner will normally take it out but won't be surprised if he passes for penalties.

So, what's a cooperative penalty double? It's very similar. We believe that, based on the hand partner has shown so far, that the opponents will be going down in their contract. It's therefore a penalty double. Partner will leave it in probably 75% of the time, but we won't be surprised if partner takes it out.

Why would partner take out such a penalty double? For the simple reason that he thinks that he'll score more playing our own contract than defending.

A well-known case of a cooperative penalty double is made when the opponents sacrifice over our game bid (or our commitment to game) and partner makes a forcing pass. If we have no extra distribution, we will be, perhaps reluctantly, forced to double. But we will be thrilled if partner now pulls our double because this is the "pass-and-pull" maneuver which says that he's interested in slam.

Less spectacular was this hand:

Playing weak no-trumps, partner opened 1♦ in second seat and this was followed by 2♠.  I didn't feel able to contribute at this point so passed. LHO now raised the ante to 3♠. Two passes followed. This was a bit much though. It was possible that partner had a balanced 15-17 hand and it would therefore be our hand. In that case, if I double he will leave it in. What if he's based his opening bid on a good diamond suit or perhaps both minors? Then he'll take out my double. The trouble was that, having passed over 2♠, my double was now a fully-fledged penalty double (the "dead auction" rule). Yet if I double now, I can't possibly be showing a spade stack (unless 2♠ was a psyche). Perhaps partner will be able to work it out. In other words, a cooperative penalty double. Here's the whole hand:

Obviously, partner doesn't have a bid and therefore passed. We collected 300 for a top. Well, no, it wasn't a top.  Several E/W pairs managed to find the lucky 3NT game. I wonder how their auctions might have gone. Even for those playing 16-18 (and I doubt there were any), surely the East hand isn't worth an invitation, is it?

Next up, from the same session, a much more controversial instance:

Notwithstanding the fact that you surely should have bid 2♥ at your previous turn, what are you going to do now? Is partner's double final and absolutely penalty? Seriously, how can it be? He doesn't know what your hand is, but he assumes that we can score a game our way but he doesn't know what in. How can he be sure that your side can get 2♠ down 2? And bear in mind that partner doesn't know about your third heart (indeed, he assumes you don't have it) nor your sixth diamond. Those are two offensive cards that will make us want to play our own contract.

In other words, he is making a cooperative penalty double.

When I posed this situation to the BridgeWinners site, there were three votes for taking out into hearts, 18 for pass and seven abstentions. At least one abstention was because they would have bid 2♥ at their previous turn so the problem would not have arisen.

Here's the full deal:

As you can see, 2♠N is cold as is 4♥E. What went wrong?

I think one clear error was made, and two misjudgments, each worth half an error. In total these were the cause of missing the two tricks we needed in defense of 2♠X. West never showed that he had three hearts. Presumably, he intended to support hearts after he had created a game force with 2♦—so what happened? And both East and West had six card suits when they might only have had a five card suit.

Switch a couple of small red cards from the West hand with a couple of small black cards from the South hand and we get the following layout:

In this layout, totally consistent with the actual auction, the "normal" contract is 3NT by West making four for 430. But 2♠X by North is now worth 500 to E/W.

So, this example of the cooperative penalty double was not such a success. But I think it could have been, given a full understanding of the idea. I should note that in neither situation had this concept ever been discussed, or even contemplated. But in at least one case it did work well.

I believe that this sort of double can only occur after responder has made a forcing bid (such as a game-forcing 2/1 or forcing-1NT-with-invitational hand). One is that it is only when we have an expectation of being able to make game (or are close) that we would even think of making a penalty double that might be pulled for tactical reasons. [I don't count those situations where partner pulls with a weak distributional hand because that is a unilateral action, not one anticipated by doubler].

The other reason is a more practical one. There aren't any other situations where responder makes a delayed support bid. In the auction on board 5, West was only able to avoid immediately supporting hearts because he had a forcing bid at his disposal. After such a response, opener doesn't yet know if his side has a fit or not so he may easily try for a penalty only to have his partner show support and revert to plan A—bidding and making game.

Using double to find out about fit (part 2)

This follow-up of the earlier Using double to find out about fit is prompted by some comments by Jeff Lehman on my last DSIP-related blog The final problem. [I apologize in advance for the inordinate length of this article, but I simply don't have the time to make it shorter—but at least I have included quite a few hand diagrams.]

Jeff maintains that in a competitive auction, after we have found a fit, we should use double to penalize the opponents, bid with an offensive hand, and pass otherwise [I hope I have this right]. And I would guess that at least 95% of active bridge players would agree with him. I recognize that I am in the minority.

So, I'd like to explain why I think my style is better. But, first, I'd better summarize it. When we find a fit at the two-level, we usually don't know whether it's a single eight-card fit, a nine-card-plus fit or some kind of double fit. I say "usually" because pairs playing Bergen raises and perhaps some other conventions actually do know. But, I am talking about the normal situation where the auction has gone, say, 1♥ (p) 2♥ or perhaps 1♦ (p) 1♥ (p) 2♥, although for simplicity I will only discuss the first of these auctions. Let's say that the last bid is immediately overcalled by 2♠. Or perhaps there is a double, taken out to 2♠. How should we proceed?

I recommend what amounts to a pass-double inversion, just like some expert pairs play at higher levels when they're in a forcing pass situation. Here, we're not in a force, of course, but I should say that we will do something probably 75% of the time or more. Pass says either "I have neither extra strength nor extra distribution" or "I have a hand which would like to defend a doubled contract if you have extra strength." Double says "I'm relatively short in their suit [usually a doubleton], and I have extra strength but no clear bid." Much of the time, therefore, we will bid on, sometimes we will "nail" the opponents and sometimes we will meekly pass and let them have the contract.

The first thing we notice is that we no longer have a good way to invite game. All of our Kokish game tries, help-suit game tries and their like are essentially out the window. We can show a second suit, bid 2NT or we can bid 3♥ (higher bids will commit our side to game anyway). But those bids can also be used simply to compete with an offensively-oriented hand. Which style makes most sense? I believe that the scoring table favors an approach which goes: declare before game before slam. I don't have the space to justify this idea here but I do talk about it some more in Two golden rules of bidding. But very briefly: if they have intervened with 2♠, and can make it while you can take ten tricks not-vulnerable in hearts, you will earn 7 imps just by bidding on to 3♥ and only a further 4 imps by actually bidding game. If you think you might be able to make game but have no good way to find out partner's opinion, just bid it. If you're right you'll gain 11 imps, if you're wrong then at least you break even over letting them play even if they do double.

Here, I'm going to make an assumption that may shock you. Once we have established that our side has approximately half the deck (that's to say the high cards) or more, we do not need much in the way of extras to compete. It's a question of pigs at the trough—if you don't get in there you will starve. The most important issue we're faced with therefore is: declare or defend? (DoD). In other words, we are now trying to determine the absolute par contract whereas, before the intervention, we were only concerned with determining our (directional) par contract, which frequently is not the same thing. At pairs, quite a few matchpoints may be riding on whether we reach par or not. At teams, there is no difference between +100 and +110 for instance. But at matchpoints, getting it right could easily swing 25% of a board. Trying for game or trying for a big penalty are also possibilities of course, but they have to take a back seat to the main issue. So, we look at the possible tools we have available and, if there are two possible uses, we choose the meaning that most helps us to decide the DoD question. If we have sufficient tools still available to help us try for game, for example, then we use them for that purpose.

What tools do we have after the auction described above: 1♥ (p) 2♥ (2♠) ? Pass, double, 2NT, 3 of a minor, 3♥ (as mentioned above). By general agreement, pass and three of our suit (3♥ here) are non-forward going. Since defending 2♠ may be the par contract, we have to include pass in our arsenal for both players in a pair.

We are therefore left with double, 2NT, 3♦ and 3♣. I hope we all agree without any further explanation that 2NT, 3♦ and 3♣  are not logical contracts. One of these bids can be used as a game try and the other two can be used as you prefer for a different kind of game try, or simply a competitive bid. Personally, I think that the lowest of the available bids should be the game try (as it leaves the most room for partner to respond with some useful information) and the higher bids should be used to further describe your hand when you have good distribution. If RHO had bid 2NT, that would obviously remove one option... and so on until a 3♦ intervention leaves us no room for a game try at all. Let me put it on record that I do not like the "maximal double" here as an artificial game try.

Trying to penalize the opponents at this low-level is generally not going to work out profitably. If we can set their contract by two tricks doubled, that will be a very nice +300. But, wait a moment, if there are 16 total tricks available (most deals have at least this many total tricks) that means we could have made ten tricks in hearts for +420. Hence doubling for penalties won't be very profitable at equal or unfavorable vulnerability. Only at favorable vulnerability will it work out well, and even then it's only at matchpoints that the result will be a triumph. So, if we rule out wanting to penalize the opponents with a direct double, it frees up that call to show extra values and relative shortness in the enemy suit. Something like a short-suit game try. If partner has an extra trump, he will take the double out automatically. Likewise if he too is short in the enemy suit. All suit bids can be used to show extra distribution, and might even help us find that magic double fit that produces game even on minimum hands.

Thus, double is the most flexible DoD invitation. It has the advantage that if partner does decide to defend—and assuming he's right and that we don't choke during the defense—we get the greatest possible consolation for our "equity" (the score we were hoping to achieve with our two-of-a-major contract). But you mustn't abuse double here or you will end up with lots of -470s and -670s. See my various other posts in this series (DSIP). Generally, you will have a balanced hand with two cards in the opponent's suit. In this context, that means 5422, 5332, or possibly 5431 shape—not 5521 or anything like that. That's what the other suit bids are for. However, you might double your singleton (or void) suit if you've already shown two suits. And, if partner has a biddable suit in response to your double (or extra length in a suit he's already shown), he should take the double out.

So, does that mean that our opponents can enter into our auctions with impunity, safe in the knowledge that they can never be caught speeding? Not at all. Often they will escape relatively unscathed when we bid on to a successful contract or we let them play undoubled when we have nothing extra. But when the trap does close, they will find that the player with the most high-card points has the short holding in trumps. His partner will have the longer holding and these conditions are perfectly suited to extracting the largest possible penalty.

Sometimes, even when we do "catch them speeding," they can wriggle out into a better contract. So, give up on waiting for juicy doubles of low-level intervention after we've found a fit—it's better to use double as an essentially constructive tool and get the occasional penalty as a bonus.

Here's a typical layout from a recent instant tournament on BBO. At the table, all were vulnerable and West made a poor decision to reopen with double. Perhaps he should have considered the board number first. All looked good at first when East bid 2♠ and N/S passed, but things went rapidly downhill thereafter, resulting in -300, a very poor matchpoint score.

Declarer could have played it a bit better and saved a trick. Perhaps North should have redoubled over the first double to show a balanced hand with maximum points. South might then feel able to double the contract for a gain of 800 to N/S. But that's being a little greedy. N/S took no risk of anything bad happening and ended up with better than an 80% board.

Now let's look at some other variations and see how they might play out using the ideas described above. We leave the E/W hands to distribute themselves as they see fit and bid as before.

In the first example on the left, South is the one with extra strength, a balanced hand and a doubleton spade: hence double. The final contract is 2♠X for +100 (assuming an unchanged E/W layout). This loses an IMP to the par contract of +140 for 3♥.

In the second variation (right) neither North nor South can bid on over 2♠ and the opponents "escape". Nevertheless, they go down two for +200 to N/S. Surprisingly, again assuming E/W remain the same, N/S can actually make 4♥ on this layout. But is it reasonable to expect anyone to bid it? +200 is therefore likely to win at least average if not better.

And, in fairness, here's a hand that appears to deflate my arguments. It's from long ago (2006) on OKbridge (I found this using Stephen Pickett's wonderful program BridgeBrowser) where the players were all good. East/West were playing "standard" and the 500 they reaped was worth 7.35 IMPs.

Playing my recommended system, the result would almost surely be only 200 (no double) for only 0.75 IMPs. This is exactly what happened at another good table but this time, the defenders did even better and extracted 300 for 3.27 IMPs. In any case, I dare say the actions would be the same at matchpoints and there the difference is much smaller: 49/51 matchpoints for 500, 48 for 300, and 41 for 200. That's still an 80% board! In other words, you will get a very good matchpoint result on this hand without having to double.

And here's a hand which many players got seriously wrong (from the same source)—again all good players at the table shown.

Par on this board is +100 for N/S for 2♠X-1. The only reasonable way to get that result is for N/S to be playing according to my system and have South double with his extras and spade shortness. North will have no reason to take it out and par will be achieved. In practice many Easts took fewer than their allotted seven tricks and at those tables 2♠X would have done very nicely for N/S. Note that although this N/S did get a fine 300, it was only because West made a dreadful bid in my opinion. They were almost surely going to escape for -50 until then.

Now for a board where N/S use double to win the declaration:

Note that in almost every real-life playing of this hand, after the first six calls, South made a very undisciplined raise to 3♥. He has no shape and could have been summarily punished an a bad day. The safe way to show your extras is with a double as shown here. North, with four hearts and a doubleton spade will take it out to 3♥ and all will be well. If E/W bid on they will be -200 or, even worse, if N/S decide to take the push to 4♥ on their 21 hcp they will be extraordinarily lucky, given their lack of useful shape, and score game.

The final problem

No, this isn't my final blog. I hope not anyway. But I would like to wrap up some loose ends on the subject of doubles. Devotees of Sherlock Holmes will of course recognize the title as that of one of the adventures.

First, I want to stress something about doubles which I haven't really emphasized before. Cooperative doubles are always a last resort. This comes from the definition that you have no other possible bid yet you have too much strength to pass.

I have mentioned previously the "three strikes you're out" rule which comes into play whenever our side makes a total of three doubles (see Three strikes - you're out). But there are other flavors of the three strikes rule. 

For example, suppose that I open 1♠, partner raises to 2♠ (with or without competition) and then later,  one of us bids 3♠. Each partner has clearly limited his hand, there's no doubt about our best strain, and nobody is prepared to bid game. By bridge logic, if the opponents continue on to the four level, a double by one of us must be for penalties.

For some time, I've been trying to determine if there is a simple trigger that applies to these situations. Essentially, these are the criteria:

• each partner has limited his hand by making a non-forcing bid;
• we have found a fit or we have settled into a quasi-fit.

Let me try some examples:

1. ♠KJ4 ♥75 ♦KQT962 ♣AQ opposite ♠QT86 ♥KQJ63 ♦J ♣J63: 1♦ (p) 1♥ (p); 2♦ (p) p (2♠); p (p) X: in this case, opener has bid and rebid diamonds -- responder was content to sit there in a quasi-fit -- until the opponents decided to balance. We know we cannot find a fit at a safe level and weren't thrilled about having to make eight tricks in diamonds. Opponent's 2♠ call is music to our ears: Double!
2. ♠KJ942 ♥75 ♦KQ62 ♣A7 opposite ♠QT86 ♥KQ62 ♦J3 ♣J63: 1♠ (2♣) 2♠ (3♣); p (p) 3♠ (p) p (4♣) X: here, we have found a limited fit in spades (three spade bids altogether), neither player has made any attempt to bid game (thus each is limited in strength). Double!

But is it necessary for both partners to have limited their hands? What if the one partner who has limited his hand, with a pass or a non-forcing bid, doubles? Is that always for penalty?

The case where one of us passes is covered in The dead auction rule. But I'm not sure that covers all of the cases. Doesn't it also apply when one of us makes a non-forcing bid and then doubles?

More situations:

1. ♠KJ942 ♥75 ♦K2 ♣AJ67 opposite ♠QT6 ♥KQ63 ♦JT43 ♣82: 1♠ (p) 2♠ (3♣); p (p) X: here, we have found a limited fit in spades (just two spade bids this time), but opener is still unlimited while responder has limited his hand. Is it possible that responder can have a hand that is a penalty double of 3♣? It's relatively unlikely so that I have always defined this situation as being a cooperative double. How good are your spades, clubs? For many pairs, double is always penalty once we've found a fit.
2. ♠KJ942 ♥72 ♦AKJ2 ♣72 opposite ♠QT6 ♥JT65 ♦T3 ♣AJ83: 1♠ (p) 2♠ (x); p (3♣) X: here, we have found a limited fit in spades (just two spade bids this time), opener and responder are limited. Now, is it possible that responder can have a hand that is a penalty double of 3♣? Absolutely, he's sitting over the club bidder and he has a maximum balanced raise.

The conclusion, for me at least, is that as soon as both partners have limited their hands, then penalty doubles go into effect. But should penalty doubles only be in the direct seat? No, I think that's unworkable. We need to have both partners using the same meaning for double, otherwise it's possible that the fish can wriggle out of the net.

And now for a real hand, this one taken from the World Wide Pairs (hands rotated).

The bidding by the opponents is a little "forward" as the Abbot might say, yet this is the kind of thing that happens in club games. It's obviously important to be on the same wavelength as to the meaning of my final double. Given that my first double was essentially a bid of spades, our side had bid spades three times. Add to that the fact that I had passed over 2♠ showing no interest in going further, then it was clear that my final double was for business. [Editor's note: I have edited the bidding a little to suit my story better, although the first four bids are real, as is the final contract.]

Our result (+500 when we managed to get an extra trick on defense) was a local top and worth 99% worldwide. Note that 4♠ cannot be made legitimately, although there were quite a few making game (420) our way so we needed that extra trick. 

So, my question to my readers is this: is it a workable scheme to turn penalty doubles on whenever both partners are limited? Is it sufficiently obvious? I'm sure that it's correct to do it this way, but is it going to be usable in practice?

The Hitchhiker's Guide to Bridge - part 2

Part one of this series was published over a year ago. I don't recall if I had a sequel in mind at the time, but here is a totally new sequel. The key mantra, which every fan of the increasingly inappropriately named Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy (there are five parts), is of course DON'T PANIC!

Nowhere in bridge does this exhortation have more relevance than in defending a doubled part-score. When you're in this situation, two things are absolutely essential:

• you must have confidence that you are in the right spot and that the contract is going down (usually at the part-score level, you only need the contract to go down one but sometimes, when the opponents are not vulnerable, you actually need them to go down two);
• you must not panic.

I hope my partner from the following hand will forgive me for bringing this up. But it seems to me that both of us to some extent panicked on this hand which swung the entire matchpoints against us.

I have annotated some thoughts after the first trick. But basically, West knows almost exactly what my hand is — this is one of the hidden benefits of the cooperative double [there will be more hidden benefits in the next blog]. I don't have four spades (I would have raised to three) but I have stuff in the minors (and, based on the lead, the SK). In addition, East could have the DK, CQ, or a high heart, perhaps two of these. It's possible that declarer has a singleton in a minor, although the double would be somewhat questionable with a five-card suit on the side. One thing about playing doubled contracts at matchpoints is that it is much more like playing IMPs or Rubber bridge. You know precisely the number of tricks needed. In this case, exactly five. These will be two spades, the two minor suit aces, and either the DK or a high heart. Can any of these go away? Not the trump obviously, not the spade. A minor suit ace could disappear conceivably but if it's the club, there's not much we can do from our side. No, the only danger is losing a diamond trick if we have one.

Cashing out is not always as easy as it might be. If at this point, the DA is laid down and, in response to an encouraging signal, a small one continued, East may assume a doubleton diamond. Better perhaps is a low diamond, although there's a small chance that declarer will score a stiff K! I think the best approach is to play DA and a spade. Partner will not assume a doubleton diamond and will probably cash the DK and switch to a club (the ace will be the setting trick so there will be no need to play low). However, West continued a spade (not fatal but essentially wasting a tempo). I won the K and now had to switch to a minor suit, although I suppose another spade would not have been fatal either. If partner had the DA, why had he not played it at trick 2? Probably he had AQ of clubs, although that would leave him only a 10-count (possible for a third-seat opener I suppose). I led a small club and here is where the exhortation DON'T PANIC comes in. Trust me to have an honor in clubs and put in the T. This would automatically hold declarer to six hearts, and two black suit queens. But partner went up with the ace. Now, the tempo is critical — we are actually behind schedule in cashing our tricks and given time, declarer can get off a diamond. So now it is essential to start the DA. As you can see, this didn't happen so we went from +200 (a top) to -730 (a bottom).

This sort of thing has been the unfortunate result in many hands. I like to get those 200s so tend to make aggressive doubles. Against a doubled part-score contract, it doesn't take a genius to recognize that letting them make will be a bottom. So there is never any danger of making an even worse error that gives away an overtrick. You'd suffer the same bottom. So, always assume that the contract will go down with relatively normal play: building and cashing tricks. Trust that partner has his bid, because if he hasn't and they make overtricks, it can't get any worse.

The cooperative double

I've written on this subject many times before here in this blog, see nine (currently) articles as well perhaps as some others of the articles answering to the label double.

A lot of the foregoing has concentrated on the rules and triggers for penalty doubles. That's to say what a cooperative double is not. What I want to do here is to try to explain simply and succinctly what it is and why you would use it.

A cooperative double is just another kind of double from which you are ready for partner to take out. In this sense it is no different than takeout, negative, responsive, support, snapdragon and maybe a few other types. What distinguishes a cooperative double from these other doubles is that the expectation of a takeout drops to somewhere around the 50% mark. You will have tried to find a fit with one or two suits mentioned already and so far you've been unsuccessful. The cooperative double is one last try. You invoke it because you believe you have as much right to declare this hand as the opponents, maybe more. But you fully expect that, about half the time, partner will leave your double in. You won't be surprised, as you might be when partner passes a takeout double. Instead, you'll get your defensive shoes on and prepare to take all your tricks to defeat the opponents' contract.

So, let's get a little more specific. First of all, what level do we generally find a cooperative double on? The most common is probably the three-level, but it can be found at almost any level, except the first which is more the realm of the above mentioned cousins.

Second, what about strength? There are two possibilities: the doubler himself has extras, perhaps a queen over minimum (which would normally give the doubler's side at least half the points in the deck), or the partnership taken together is known to "own" the hand (at least about 22 hcp).

Finally, and this is the key point, what sort of hand does the cooperative doubler have? Simply put, he will be one card short of a bid in each suit that hasn't been claimed by the opponents. Too few cards to support partner, too few to rebid his own suit, too few to mention a new suit (he would typically have five to mention a new suit at the three-level, for example). Let's say doubler has four of his own suit, having implied four, three of partner's suit (he having promised four), and four of another unbid suit. That leaves two in the opponents' suit. In other words, much of the time he will double with a balanced hand holding two cards in their suit. When partner leaves the double in with three or four cards in their suit, she will be counting on about two trumps in the other hand. Occasionally, as the level gets higher and you are more reluctant to introduce a new suit by bidding it directly, you might be reduced to only one card in their suit. Partner will take the auction so far into account when deciding to pull or pass the double. She will only pass when she has no extra distribution of her own beyond what she's already promised (can't rebid her suits and can't support yours) and, hopefully, she will have something usefully placed in the enemy suit.

Furthermore, if there are two unbid suits, doubler should have approximately the same length in each, perhaps one card different (5-4 or even 4-3). But two cards (6-4) is far too much disparity in my opinion. Not only might you end up in a 4-4 fit when you have a 6-3 fit available, not in and of itself a tragedy, but if partner has 3-3 in the unbid suits, you may end up defending a doubled contract despite having a nine-card fit of your own. This is not the time to be defending unless the level is high enough that you expect a substantial penalty (i.e. a sacrifice situation). Of course this applies to negative and responsive doubles too.

Now let's look at things from the other side of the table. Partner has made a cooperative double. Should you take it out or leave it in? If you have one of the distributional features (assets) that partner is looking for, bid it, even if you fancy your chances on defense. Nothing is more demoralizing than doubling the opponents in some part-score and then having it make. Sometimes it is supposed to go down but you need double-dummy defense or even a lucky defense to set it. For this reason, I believe that passing the double should be the last resort, especially at teams. The cooperative double is a way to find our own contracts more than a way of nailing the opposition. Declaring at both tables of a team game can generate a lot of swings in the 4-7 range. And at matchpoints, you will be winning a lot of boards simply by successfully outbidding the opponents. The occasional penalty will be a bonus but it should not become an end in and of itself.

The lower the level, the less willing partner should be to leave the double in and, conversely, the higher the level, the more willing partner should be to pass (but note that doubler may have fewer trumps as the level gets higher as explained above). Doubled and freely-bid suit contracts at the two level are rarely very profitable. The one exception being after an overcall is followed by a reopening double. But even that situation is usually not very profitable at the one-level. And of course, vulnerability should be factored in. Stretching to double the opponents when they aren't vulnerable is not winning bridge, especially if bidding on would give us a decent shot at a vulnerable game.

Note also that the cooperative double is part of a bidding style often called Do Something Intelligent, Partner (DSIP). But I've come to the realization that not only does DSIP suggest a more extreme (looser, more speculative) version of competitive bidding but, with a disciplined cooperative double, partner isn't required to do anything more intelligent than looking to see if he has any undeclared offensive assets and acting accordingly.

The cooperative double can also go by several different names (card-showing, action, etc.). One of the most apposite is Mel Colchamiro's "BOP" double (for balance-of-power). The BOP double is in fact a slightly more conservative version of the cooperative double and well-suited to IMP scoring. In order to use it, the partnership must have the balance of power (not just equal power) and the doubler must be sitting under the hand with most length in the suit.

Experts routinely make use of cooperative doubles below the level of game. For the expert, it is a sharp weapon. However, lesser mortals need to remember that like any other weapon, it can end up being turned against us. So, understanding the benefits and limitations of the method and being disciplined about its use is extremely important. It is easy to get carried away and double without the proper values or while holding a card that may be valuable, offensively, to our side. But, properly used, it will gain you matchpoints and IMPs in the long run.

Wielding the axe

I've probably spent far too many words in this blog on the subject of using double as a flexible call looking for a fit with the general expectation of partner taking the double out if he can. I know that some of you are thinking "but I like to penalize the enemy." Believe me, so do I – but I happen to think that that is often the route to getting the juiciest penalties.

So, using the system I've described (just look for the label "double" or "DSIP"), there are only a few ways you can penalize the opponents. Perhaps the most common is when an ostensibly takeout-oriented double is passed for penalties. This usually has the advantage that the extra strength and the extra trumps are in different hands. The other situations arise when double occurs (1) after one of us jumps, thus making a relatively clear statement about the distribution; or (2) after a redouble; or (3) after we make a cue bid, and (4) subsequent to several circumstances having to do with having told your story sufficiently often or having previously shown that you didn't want to compete further.

And then there's the easiest of all contracts to double for penalties: a notrump bid which is "to play." My definition of to play is when it's natural and (1) at the two-level or higher and/or (2) when it's in competition.

Here's a nice example of a low-level double of a competitive notrump bid which was easy to apply and quite profitable (9 imps). It's from an IMP table on BBO (I have redacted the names, although I don't think anyone really did much wrong*):

Those N/S pairs who played in notrump made either 8 or 9 tricks (best defense holds it to 8). But all other contracts were destined to go down. So the important thing here was to maximize the penalty. There was nothing particularly difficult in finding the red card but I will make a couple of observations. First, one of the most important factors in a penalty double is a lack of fit with partner. The worse the fit, the fewer total tricks there are likely to be and the more we want to defend a doubled contract if we can. Second, my hand had something in all the other suits so it would not be easy for them to wriggle out of it. And third, I trusted my partner to have a real overcall. It wasn't what I would call a great overcall, especially vulnerable, but it had solid opening values. Partner was not particularly interested in a spade lead, and he wasn't taking away any bids from the opponents, so therefore he was competing for the contract. And, given his outside strength, there was even a decent chance that, if I had a spade fit, we might even be able to make game.

Of sixteen tables that played this board, there were two others at which the first round of bidding was identical. But in one case North passed, in the other he bid 2♣. A few Wests chose to make a negative double instead of the 1NT call. To my mind this is equally dangerous because North has an easy redouble. But that never happened in practice. Instead, those Norths chose to bid notrump, which predictably did reasonably well.

The moral of the story is simply this: While it's nice to be able to diagnose a likely penalty, both partners must be on the same page regarding the meaning of the double in order for the trap to be successfully sprung.

* There may be some arguments that both East and West slightly overbid their hands, especially considering the vulnerability.  But these were not particularly unusual actions. 11/16 Easts opened one heart. 3/10 Wests hearing one heart and one spade then bid 1NT. Really, I think they were just a little unlucky.

Reviewing the situation

My regular readers may have noticed that I haven't written much about doubles lately. Well, in light of the recent articles in the Bridge Bulletin by Karen Walker, I cannot let that state of affairs continue much longer.

I am very fortunate to be heading to Phoenix for the NABC soon. I wasn't expecting to be there, but guess what – I have to go there for work so will add a few days at the start. I will play in the LM pairs with my friend Barry Margolin. For our previous exploits in a national event, see The Little Gremlin. So, in preparation for our bridge date I wanted us to be on the same page regarding doubles.

Barry says he's the kind of player who responds better to general principles than rules and/or triggers. I think there are probably a lot of people who would say the same thing. Therefore I tried to put together one general principle which I hope will keep us on the same page for our upcoming sessions.

Before I get to that, however, let me give praise to my biggest fan regarding doubles, Bruce Downing, co-author of the Downhill notrump system. He has independently done a review and/or comparison between my triggers and Karen's bridge bulletin articles and found much similarity (though he prefers my "traffic light" analogy and triggers). I quote his opening remarks in a personal email:


There are two unwritten books that I hope to someday have on my shelf. One is 'Gariepy on Redoubles'. Larry Gariepy, a Dartmouth grad student in my early days of bridge in the Upper Valley, believed that the blue card was hugely under-utilized...

The other volume will be 'Hillyard on Doubles'. Robin has put extensive thought into when doubles should be takeout or cooperative or penalty. He has traffic light analogies. It's complicated but it's simple. He has blogged extensively with examples and cautionary tales. On the rare, but always enjoyable, occasions when I play with Robin, I always have to study the list of 'triggers'. Triggers are auction types which make a double penalty in Robin's methods.

So, with all appropriate preambles, here I have tried to formulate my doubles rules into a single guiding principle (with optional rider):

Provided that the hand hasn't shown itself to be a misfit and we are still seeking a fit, then double is for takeout or is cooperative, i.e. showing a hand with an expectation of owning or sharing the hand but no clear course of action. The level of the auction, in and of itself, does not affect the meaning of double – but if we could have doubled cooperatively at a lower level, then logically double is now penalty. Of course, once penalty doubles are on, we can never go back to cooperative doubles.

Any frequent partnership needs to discuss a few more details to be completely on the same page, but I think that this description should suffice for most partnerships that play only occasionally (like ours). Here’s the optional rider (essentially similar to some of Mel Colchamiro’s “BOP” double situations):

Even when we have found a fit, if an intervention finds us wanting to compete to an uncomfortable (unlawful) level, double is cooperative, unless our distribution/fit is already well known.

Some clarifications (I wish everything was already so clear that these were not necessary):

A misfit declares itself (or at least suggests itself for our purposes) when somebody bids a natural notrump in competition. It says "this is our hand but we don't appear to have a fit". Similarly, a redouble normally implies no fit (although some pairs may not use it that way). One of us rebidding his suit in the face of no support tends to proclaim (or suggest) a misfit also.

Owning the hand means we have about 23 hcp or more. Sharing the hand means that we have at least 20 hcp and sufficient distribution (especially spades) to give us a little safety. Either way, we are entitled to a seat at the (competitive) table.

No clear course of action usually means that we are one card short of a bid, whether it be a raise, a rebid or a new suit. An analogous situation arises in constructive auctions where one partner bids the fourth suit.

A well-known fit pertains when either partner has shown (or denied) a ninth card in our agreed suit. If it exists, this ninth card “entitles" us to bid to the three-level (similarly, denial of a ninth card would suggest not going to the three-level). Note that a cue-bid by us may hide whether the hand has a ninth card or is looking for a stopper (in which case maybe doesn’t even have an eighth card). Either way, subsequent doubles are penalty because so much is known already about the strength and distribution. Of course, it’s less likely that we will want to penalize the opponents when we have a nine-card fit but when it does happen, we need to be on the same page.

An uncomfortable (unlawful) level typically refers to the three-level in a competitive auction. But by extension, if the auction is jammed and we don’t yet know how good our fit is, double can be used to ask how good our fit is at a higher level.

Well-known distribution usually means that one of us has made a call that narrowly limits the distribution patterns that we might have. There are too many ways to do this to list them all.

Note that I definitely haven't given up on the traffic-light analogy (see More about doubles) or triggers (see DSIP Rule Summary). If the putative book mentioned above ever appears in print, there will be extensive discussion of those aspects because less experienced players are, I believe, more comfortable with rules. But the description given here is perhaps a little more palatable to the expert and/or intuitive player.

As always, your comments are welcome.

2013/11/05

Super-duper double disaster

Once in a while, because of my obsession with trying to tame the meaning of Double!, I get asked to adjudicate, or otherwise comment on, mishaps at the table involving doubles. The latest was a beauty. I am protecting the identities of those involved, but they managed to create a swing of 2500 points against themselves.

I believe that South made a significant (but recoverable) error in not bidding 2♥ (or 2♦) at his second turn. After all, he has a very nice offensively-oriented hand, especially when the opponents overcall clubs. And partner is not broke – we have about half of the deck, and when we have half the deck, we should not be shy about bidding shapely hands.

Most experts are reluctant to double for penalties bid-and-raised suit contracts below game. There's just too much risk for too little gain. Let's say, for instance, that both sides have an eight-card fit and that the law of total tricks is behaving well (indeed, on the basis of our hand with a void and a solid suit, there are quite likely to be more than sixteen tricks). For the moment, let's consider only the two options of doubling for penalties or bidding on (and they will double us if we're going down). If the opponents bid to the three-level (as here) and both sides can take eight tricks, doubling will give us +200 instead of -200  (9 imps) – that's nice. Or maybe we can be +500 instead of +140 (8 imps). Doubling looks lucrative. But just suppose that there are seventeen total tricks (the most common number). Doubling gains either 2 imps or, if disaster strikes, we lose 10 imps (for -670 versus -200) – an average of -4 imps. When there are more total tricks (as might well be the case when a minor suit is overcalled and raised like this), the risk of doubling far outweighs any gain because we might actually suffer a double game swing against us. This would happen here if there were nineteen total tricks: perhaps -670 for doubling and +620 for bidding on to game (a loss of 15 imps).

On this occasion, as you can readily perceive looking at all four hands, there are 20 total trumps and a massive 22 (!) total tricks. This is often the case with pure hands where there are singletons and, especially, voids. Here, the deal is pure because we have no secondary honors in clubs, nor they in spades. There is a small amount of crossover in the red suits but not very much.

Thus, North-South are cold for 6♥ yet allowed East/West to make 1070 in their club contract (one overtrick was always coming, the other, at trick one, was I suspect a result of North thinking that South had a defensively-oriented hand. That's 21 imps.

And the swing in a team game might be even greater, depending on the result at the other table. Suppose the other N/S played in a sensible but slightly pedestrian 4♥. Getting to 6♥ would therefore have won 13 imps. The actual result would have been -17 imps. That's an unfavorable swing of 30 imps on one hand!

So, North's double was intended as take-out, and I am almost in 100% agreement with it. I say almost because I think that the double here shows a hand with "extras", approximately a doubleton in the enemy suit and no clear bid.  But here, North could easily have bid 3♥.

It is true that North had bid 1NT and it's tempting to think that 1NT should switch on penalty doubles. But it shouldn't – it's not an offer to play notrump – it's forcing. As we've seen here, it can mask a fairly decent offensively-oriented hand.

The hitchhiker's guide to Bridge: part 1

The instruction DON'T PANIC was written in large letters on the front page of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, according to Douglas Adams in the novel of that name (1979). It is also a good thing to remember at times when playing bridge.

There are probably several different aspects of the game where the exhortation is relevant. One is defending a contract with a good side suit. There is a tendency to panic unless we have a good count on declarer's hand. Another common situation is defending a doubled part score, especially when partner is the chief hawk and our hand is dove-like.

The situation that is the subject of this blog occurs during the auction. It's a common mistake of beginners in bridge to keep running from doubled contracts. Just the other day, I doubled a contract at the two-level (we were slated to earn 500) but the opponents panicked and ended up in the exact same suit, but one level higher. We enjoyed our 800.

Here's a situation where the BBO robots demonstrated that they too are subject to this type of panic attack. The hand occurred in a robot tournament, costing me a decent showing. To add insult to injury, the tournaments now require the human to play all the hands so I was the one playing the ridiculous contract. Assuming that 4♦ gets doubled it would have been worth approximately 12 IMPs to us (-100 against a vulnerable game). 4♠ doubled should also have been -100 although the two times it was played resulted in -500. That would have been worth 4.8 IMPs. The actual contract of 5♥X (-800 although I could have escaped for -500) was worth -4.1 IMPs.

It was all so unnecessary – and a direct result of panicking. 4♦ hadn't even been doubled yet. You would think that my robot partner would be happy to have three cards in each of my announced suits. But no, he bids his own suit. When that gets doubled (surprise), he pulls to the strain that he previously eschewed. That gets doubled and he pulls yet again.



Are there any lessons to be learned (by the robot) here? The first lesson is that when partner has promised a two-suiter and voluntarily bids one of the suits "to play", then that suit is at least as good as the other suit and will usually be better. How do we know it's "to play?" In this case, it's clear from the auction that the opponents hold most of the cards and that the robot is broke. A raise would be unthinkable and a preference is only desired with significantly better hearts than diamonds.

The second lesson is that three card support (here in each of partner's suits!) is very good to have. Don't try to bid your own suit, unless it's at least eight cards long!

The third lesson is that once the opponents start doubling, they are likely to double everything in sight. The fact that they doubled 5♦, doesn't in any way suggest that 5♥ would play better. And that's going to be doubled too.

Don't get me wrong. I enjoy playing these robot tournaments. The robots are patient, they are fast. They never criticize my inept play. Occasionally they go off the rails, as above, but mostly I love them for being competent, if not brilliant, and dependable partners.