[ewj]

Scoring: IMP

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Playing against weakish players, the auction goes 1♣, 1♠ from partner, negative double on your right and you bid 2♣, LHO bids 2♥ and this is passed back to you.

Pass is stronger than 2♠ by partner, although he's presumably a bit encouraged because of a void ♥....

Do you double?

[TylerE]

Sure.

[Apollo81]

Yes, I doubt partner will sit for it though.

[Echognome]

I'm going to buck the trend and pass. My values seem really poorly placed here. Yes I have AJT in partner's suit, but I've alread shown a limit raise. Although partner's pass showed more encouragement than bidding 2♠, he had more positive options available. I'm also looking at two Kings in the round suits with dubious values offensively. Let's try to take 6 tricks on defense.

[jdonn]

Echognome, on Feb 25 2009, 11:13 AM, said:

I'm going to buck the trend and pass. My values seem really poorly placed here. Yes I have AJT in partner's suit, but I've alread shown a limit raise. Although partner's pass showed more encouragement than bidding 2♠, he had more positive options available. I'm also looking at two Kings in the round suits with dubious values offensively. Let's try to take 6 tricks on defense.

Aren't you in a force? You already forced to the 2 level.

Double seems perfect, I think partner is well judged to either pass or bid 2♠.

[mtvesuvius]

X, punish RHO for making a negative double on 3 . If partner pulls it, we now know that we have reached the right contract.

[OleBerg]

Double.

On the relatively few deals it is wrong, you will often be able to blame partner or bad luck.

[kgr]

..is it possible that DBL is not penalty here. I play mostly take out DBLs and I think partner would take DBL here as 2.5♠

[Echognome]

jdonn, on Feb 25 2009, 08:16 AM, said:

Echognome, on Feb 25 2009, 11:13 AM, said:

I'm going to buck the trend and pass.  My values seem really poorly placed here.  Yes I have AJT in partner's suit, but I've alread shown a limit raise.  Although partner's pass showed more encouragement than bidding 2♠, he had more positive options available.  I'm also looking at two Kings in the round suits with dubious values offensively.  Let's try to take 6 tricks on defense.

Aren't you in a force? You already forced to the 2 level.

Double seems perfect, I think partner is well judged to either pass or bid 2♠.

Yep. I think we are in a force. I hope my partner understands. I just don't see my partner leaving this in. It might lead to a good discussion afterwards though. I am ready to apologize.

[gnasher]

Once we've found a major-suit fit, I think all doubles should be for penalties (possibly excepting a double of one below three of our major). I'm not that keen here, though - those heart pips don't look very robust, ♣K is poorly placed, and clubs are breaking for them. I'd just bid 2♠.

[peachy]

Having bid 2C, I think system forbids me to pass, so the choices now are Dbl or 2S. I like Dbl.

[Phil]

jdonn, on Feb 25 2009, 11:16 AM, said:

Aren't you in a force? You already forced to the 2 level.

Double seems perfect, I think partner is well judged to either pass or bid 2♠.

Sure, pass is forcing, but what exactly does it show? I usually play it as it a non-descript game try.

Agree with double btw and also realize its getting pulled.

[MickyB]

Phil, on Feb 26 2009, 06:39 AM, said:

Agree with double btw and also realize its getting pulled.

Hmm. At the table, ewj doubled on this hand, and I passed it on a hand I'm sure everyone else would pull on.

My thinking was thus -

Partner probably has a pretty good idea what everyone at the table has. (We had already seen oppo to be fairly conservative, and they had made their calls without any apparent anguish)

If pard decides to double when he knows approximately what everyone has, then it would be wrong (and insulting) to pull it. In particular, I expected a trump holding that pard would be happy to lead when he got in.

I can think of the following counter-arguments -

- Given my hand (a 5044 pile), it's pretty odds-against to be right to try to take a penalty anyway

- We need pard to double and me to pull at the two-level so that I don't pull erroneously if they compete to the three-level. Of course, they are hardly likely to compete once we've doubled them in 2H, but at least this way we declare 2S not 3S.

Oh well, at least when we play with screens there won't be any temptation to over-analyse the oppo's tempo in this way!

[Hanoi5]

Quote

..is it possible that DBL is not penalty here. I play mostly take out DBLs and I think partner would take DBL here as 2.5♠

When partner sees a singleton or void in hearts in his hand, do you think he'll take the double as another try for game in spades? I believe in these situations partner should take a look at his hand and the auction before deciding what the double is. Am I right?

What was the end of the story anyway?

[655321]

Hanoi5, on Feb 26 2009, 05:16 AM, said:

When partner sees a singleton or void in hearts in his hand, do you think he'll take the double as another try for game in spades? I believe in these situations partner should take a look at his hand and the auction before deciding what the double is. Am I right?

No.

[gnasher]

Hanoi5, on Feb 26 2009, 11:16 AM, said:

When partner sees a singleton or void in hearts in his hand, do you think he'll take the double as another try for game in spades? I believe in these situations partner should take a look at his hand and the auction before deciding what the double is. Am I right?

No. Responder can have 4, 5, 6 or even 7 hearts, so possession of a shortage is no guarantee that partner has length. In any case, doubling 2♥ risks losing a huge number of IMPs; do you really want to rely on the opponents to tell you whether it's right?