[kgr]

1D-(P)-1H-(1NT)-
DBL

You don't play support doubles.
Is DBL Penalty or takeout here? What do you think it is in SAYC and what do you prefer?
(does form of scoring or vulnerability make a difference?)

Thanks,
Koen

[mikeh]

Jlall, on Oct 17 2006, 06:38 PM, said:

Business. If they're going to come in with a 1N call in sandwich seat you have to punish them when their partner has nothing.

Agree. While most low-level doubles are takeout, doubles of in-competition 1N are usually penalty

[whereagles]

If you're going to trot out that Robson/Segal rule "All doubles are for take-out until a fit is found", then this is a take-out, showing something like a 3 suiter with short hearts.

However, you're not going to double for take-out on a possible misfit hand unless you have extras. And if you have extras, opps are in big trouble anyway.

Conclusion: it doesn't matter if it's take-out or penalty. At this stage it cannot logically mean anything than: "they're in trouble".

[Gerben42]

Although I'm a fan of most doubles for take-out, if 1NT is natural it should be punished whenever possible. If 1NT shows the other suits, Dbl should be support (or "points" if you don't play that, for example a strong NT playing weak NT)

Meta-rules:

* Double of a natural 1NT overcall is penalty
* No other low-level doubles are for penalty

[FrancesHinden]

Penalties whatever the 1NT means.

[P_Marlowe]

Penalty.

Promising at least an opener, who gurantees,
that the partnership has the half of the deck,
i.e. +15HCP.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[pclayton]

If you're playing support doubles AND the 1N overcall is sandwich, it makes some sense to play the double as support. But this is a matter of agreement.

If 1N is natural, double should be penalty.

[neilkaz]

pclayton, on Oct 18 2006, 12:35 PM, said:

If you're playing support doubles AND the 1N overcall is sandwich, it makes some sense to play the double as support. But this is a matter of agreement.

If 1N is natural, double should be penalty.

Even if playing support doubles, I much prefer to not play them after the opps come in with a natural NT.

Penatly double all the way.

[kgr]

Thanks all for the intersting answers.
my partner had 15 pts and 6 card D (I had Kx of D and we would have started with 6 D tricks). I did bid 2H having 7 pts and 5 card H. We had the meta rule that DBL is takeout unless partner defined his hand (eg by having preempted).
I will add to this that double of 1NT overcall is penalty.

[Free]

Agree with whereagles: it means they are in trouble and will always have a trump stack against them if they try to run. The "takeout factor" will almost automaticly be converted.

[Gerben42]

Here is an interesting statistic from Bridge Browser. Sandwich 1NT overcalls on a big balanced hand scored:

-0.04 IMPs/Board and avg. 51.71% at MP, so quite neutral. The interesting fact is that on those boards where the 1NT advance got doubled, opener's side did not come out ahead, averaging -0.14 IMPs and 44.7% at MP.

I then did a search on 2-suited 1NT bids after 1♦ p 1♠ and found that these bids average 0.35 IMPs and 54.98%, so clearly positive (in total about 100 IMP and 45 MP hands)

Now for the final question: What happens to the big balanced hand when playing this way? So I tried the same auction (1♦ p 1♠) and looked what happened to 1NT overcalls that passed or doubled. Passing big balanced hand was not popular, but those who did paid the price. What about Doubling?

It scores an average of -0.39 IMPs / 46.88%. These bids seem to come up all the time, however it was not a "pure" search, I didn't manage to really compare it to bidding 1NT.

So what does this all tell you? I don't know