[kgr]

(1♣)-DBL-(1♥)-DBL
What is the second DBL? (You play against beginners who never psych)

Thanks,
Koen

[Fluffy]

penalty, they might misssort their hand

[awm]

Still penalty. The "psych-revealing" reason for this double to be penalty is only one among many. In particular:

People bid 1♥ on four-card holdings all the time. We could still have an 8- or 9- card heart fit and need to be able to find it.

It's nice to have a bid to show values and indicate that opponents are in trouble with a potential misfit. Double is the best way to do this, since any other call potentially lets opponents off the hook (except pass if 1♥ is forcing, which in any case might cause doubler to bid again).

[pclayton]

Penalty, but it tends to show specifically 4. With 5+; bid 2♥+

[glen]

Penalty without any agreement.

I prefer the agreement of "shows values without a good bid to make - passable if takeout doubler has 4 decent ♥s".

[fred]

Penalty definitely standard in the USA and that's what I use, but I am not sure it is best.

My partner and I have recently learned (the hard way of course) that if the bidding goes, for example:

1C-DBL-2H (weak)

That it is better to play DBL as "responsive" because it is very unlikely that you will be dealt a hand suitable for a penalty DBL and quite likely you will be dealt a good hand with no good bid to make.

I have never seen anyone psych a bid like 2H in the above auction. In the unlikely event that people start doing this regularly we might have to change back to playing DBL as penalty.

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[whereagles]

Default meaning is penalty, but you can play it as responsive. With hearts, bid 2♥, ignoring RHOs petty ♥xxxx hearts

[jtfanclub]

fred, on May 15 2007, 05:57 PM, said:

I have never seen anyone psych a bid like 2H in the above auction. In the unlikely event that people start doing this regularly we might have to change back to playing DBL as penalty.

Nobody psyches it because the default is penalty.

I have found, in my very limited experience, that doubles work best going against the field. If everybody else plays the X here as penalty, then nobody will psyche (or even push) 1♥. Therefore, you don't need to play it as penalty, you can play it as responsive.

With one partnership, we've taken this to the extreme of playing Fishbein, so that X's of opening 2 and 3 bids is penalty. Works great! People are so used to not getting penalty doubled for their pre-emptive openings that they open all sorts of crazy crap pre-emptively. Of course, these aren't expert fields.

Must be a term for it, where the field being one way protects you from having to do the same.

[Fluffy]

If you could just ask your opponents what their agreements are after you bid 2♥ and then psycke... sadly that is normally not a good idea.

[dcvetkov]

jtfanclub, on May 16 2007, 08:45 AM, said:

fred, on May 15 2007, 05:57 PM, said:

I have never seen anyone psych a bid like 2H in the above auction. In the unlikely event that people start doing this regularly we might have to change back to playing DBL as penalty.

Nobody psyches it because the default is penalty.

I have found, in my very limited experience, that doubles work best going against the field. If everybody else plays the X here as penalty, then nobody will psyche (or even push) 1♥. Therefore, you don't need to play it as penalty, you can play it as responsive.

With one partnership, we've taken this to the extreme of playing Fishbein, so that X's of opening 2 and 3 bids is penalty. Works great! People are so used to not getting penalty doubled for their pre-emptive openings that they open all sorts of crazy crap pre-emptively. Of course, these aren't expert fields.

Must be a term for it, where the field being one way protects you from having to do the same.

I have serious doubts that Fishbain penalty for 2 and 3 level works so great. One of the reasons is the frequency, how often are you dealt KQ109 in trhe opener's suit? Besides, partner can always reopen in the last seat with the right hand, and vulnerability willl be right probably less then 50% of the time, and also they can get into more higher or inferior contract like 3NT where you can dbl for lead in opener suit.

I admit sometimes you will hit a winner with 800 when your side cant make a game, but I would not hold my breath for these hands.

The reason negative, responsive , reopening and other doubles are so popular it that the hands suitable for these bids come much more often, and they cover large variety of hands.

Just my 2 cents

[jtfanclub]

dcvetkov, on May 17 2007, 12:00 AM, said:

Quote

I have serious doubts that Fishbain penalty for 2 and 3 level works so great. One of the reasons is the frequency, how often are you dealt KQ109 in trhe opener's suit?

I don't need that, any more than I need KQT9xx to open a weak 2. An X generally shows a 15-18NT opener, or a hand that evaluates to 15-18 after factoring in the bid, with 1.5 or more stops.

Quote

Besides, partner can always reopen in the last seat with the right hand

If I'm holding a balanced 16 count, waiting for partner to reopen is probably a losing proposition.

Quote

also they can get into more higher or inferior contract like 3NT where you can dbl for lead in opener suit.

I don't think passing hoping that they'll go to 3NT is much of a winner either.

Quote

The reason negative, responsive , reopening and other doubles are so popular it that the hands suitable for these bids come much more often, and they cover large variety of hands.

When your opponents are coming in with 7-10 hcp, a 6 card suit with 2 of the top 3 (or 3 of the top 5), the odds of you having the X for penalty hand is pretty slim.

But when they start opening 2♥ with

x
Kxxxx
Jxx
KQJx

which somebody did last night, and opening 3♣ with

Qx
x
Jxxx
Kxxxxx

as somebody did a few days ago, suddenly the odds of you having the NT hand are much higher. And really, with the 15-18 hcp hand, do you want to overcall 2NT? Bad splits are going to abound, which is bad for 3NT, and if your partner has junk 2NT isn't going to be a good place to play.

The goofier people get with their pre-empts, the better penalty doubles become. And people have gotten pretty goofy, at least at the level I play at.

[jdonn]

Fishbein works so badly that when I know my opponents are playing it I preempt much, much more, not less. Barry Rigal has written about the fact that it hardly even increases the amount of penalties you achieve, just you get them when the strong hand has trumps, instead of when the weak hand has trumps (i.e. the strong hand would have made a takeout double that gets converted). Also now you allow the opponents to run over the penalty double, when they may instead have been stuck in a lousy contract. Meanwhile you lose the overcall you would have had that you are now using as a takeout double so your constructive bidding suffers, and you lose your lebensohl as well. Over a 3 level bid you may have to overcall on the 4 level to show a takeout, and partner can't reply 3NT any more. Just awful.

[jdeegan]

Modern ethics and duplicate bridge have made conventions like Fishbein obsolete. I can recall old-time, rough-and-tumble, relatively high stakes rubber bridge games where psychic preempts followed by dial-a-suit were not uncommon. Fishbein was a necessary survival tool at those tables.