[mike777]

(1H)=X=(4H)=?

BOTH VUL, MP
Opp are bbo rated exp, vanilla 2/1 cc.


9874...6...AK42....Q852


YOU BID AND WHY?

[CSGibson]

I'm a doubler. It's matchpoints, I have values, but not in spades, and partner will know my double can't be on the trump suit, but is on general values without clear direction.

[karlson]

I bid (4s). The singleton heart looks like too much o/d.

Moreover, they might be about to bid 5h over this if they do have 11 trumps, which I'll happily double.

[whereagles]

4♠. The heart shortage means we need 22-24 working pts and I think we might just have that.

[jdonn]

4♠, I don't even think this is a problem.

[pclayton]

jdonn, on Dec 12 2007, 08:31 AM, said:

4♠, I don't even think this is a problem.

I'm doubling. The spade suit sucks and pard hardly guarantees four here. I have some nice defense and I'm fine if pard wants to defend.

I could be wrong, but it is MPs and I don't need to be bidding crappy games.

[mike777]

10-2 for 4spades....any other votes or comments welcomed.

[jdonn]

Sure you will wish you didn't bid 4♠ if partner has three of them but that's much too pessimistic. The truth is since partner rates to have two hearts he is usually passing this double, so all you are doing is letting the opponents take a save BELOW your game! How can that be right? When my opponents double me in 4♥ on auctions like this I always make sure to tell them when I would have bid 5 if I had been pushed.

I still don't think this is a problem. Anything but 4♠ is outsmarting yourself.

[awm]

I agree with jdonn.

Double is always an appealing action in these types of polls because you can always blame partner for making the wrong decision later. After all, double is the most "flexible" (read: blame transfer) action.

I always find it amusing to watch people make these doubles at the table because the result that they reach the wrong spot and partner gets blamed is amazingly common! I guess the doublers never lose the post-mortem and are always left wishing they had "better" (read: telepathic) partners, but I'd rather improve my results on the actual hands than win the post-mortems.

[whereagles]

jdonn, on Dec 12 2007, 08:16 PM, said:

so all you are doing is letting the opponents take a save BELOW your game! (..) Anything but 4♠ is outsmarting yourself.

must admit this is very convincing

[whereagles]

awm, on Dec 12 2007, 08:32 PM, said:

double is the most "flexible" (read: blame transfer) action

cancel my previous post: you just made the best case ever for dbling

[kfay]

I double. Who says we don't have defense? And to me the singleton heart doesn't scream 'Hot damn my hand is sexy in 4♠.' I'd definitely double at MPs (agree with Phil) and can't say I wouldn't do the same at IMPs.

If partner takes this out then we're almost certain to make whatever they bid. Secondly, if they leave it in... great!! that's what I was hoping for, frankly. I wouldn't try to pin a pass with poor results on partner since that would be lying about what my initial intentions were.

[gwnn]

4♠ wtp? We've got spades... We've got shape... We have the hand. They may even make 4♥ mmkay?

[kfay]

gwnn, on Dec 12 2007, 05:31 PM, said:

4♠ wtp? We've got spades... We've got shape... We have the hand. They may even make 4♥ mmkay?

True they may make 4♥ if they play there but who says this is our hand? We are guaranteed to have 23 HCP on this bidding? Hardly. I'm fairly confident that we could defeat 4♥ a majority of the time since I know that all the outstanding cards are poorly placed for declarer.

I'm going with the thought that they probably won't make 4♥ and we might not even make 4♠... which now makes me just feel foolish.

[gwnn]

sorry "we have the hand" was meant as a figure of speech. obviously it turned out rather clumsily.

[1eyedjack]

Interesting thread if perhaps not the best hand to illustrate the points of interest.
Double does not show a trump stack here, and there is a danger of our having duplicated shape, with associated duplicated losers. I don't rate this hand as having a particularly high ODR. Count me as a 4S bidder, partly because I have seen 4H make too often on these hands, when the distribution looks normal from our side but turns out to be freaky the other way. But I don't think that double is as bad as the voting ratio suggests.

Perhaps double should show precisely doubleton in opponents trumps, being the holding that is most likely to result in their having two cashing tricks in that suit.

[nick_s]

Double at MPs. 4S at IMPs.

I've no idea who can make what here. At IMPs, I'm not going to risk a double game swing. At MPs, I'm going with my gut suspicion that neither side can make a contract at the 4 level. I need to double to get that magic +200.