[PhantomSac]

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But if we are talking just about "standard", without qualifiers -- you're going to have a really long wait until 1♣-1♠-X saying absolutely nothing about diamonds is the usual way of playing it.

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On your posted example hands such as Qxxx AJxx xx xxx, yes, a large majority of tournament players would double after 1♣-(1♠).

These two statements just don't mesh. A random 7 count with a doubleton diamond and no shape is not some extraordinary exception to some rule. It is a common hand that as you say, a large majority of tournament players would double on (I would bet on at least 90 %, I'm not talking about EXPERT players, where it would be 99 %).

So effectively you are saying people will routinely double on hands that do not have diamonds and are not rare or exceptional, but that it will be a long time before the usual way of playing it is that it says nothing about diamonds? Apparently it is already the usual way!

People are being disingenuous to themselves if they think that the X is showing both unbid suits, but they can just often have a doubleton diamond, and never have short hearts. In that case they're showing hearts with their double, and not showing anything else, regardless of what they say.

But I guess we agree to disagree. I'm not sure why you think you know more about what standard bridge procedures are than me, but perhaps you should poll people you know, or people on these forums to decide whether you are right or not. Perhaps you are even wrong. I might even suggest that perhaps it is you who is out of touch with what is standard, but I don't even think that's true since you freely admitted that a large majority of people would double on the normal looking hands I gave that were negative doubles that didn't contain diamonds, and didn't contain a club fit.

[mike777]

manudude03, on Feb 2 2010, 10:11 PM, said:

Club match on Monday:

Scoring: IMP

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Sitting West:

You open 1♣ (2+ if it matters), LHO overcalls 1♠, partner doubles, pass to you. Whats your plan? (partner bids 3♥ if you bid 2♠ general GF)

back...i bid 2d if i understand the bidding so far

[PhantomSac]

Also I took a look at the (11 year old) book 25 conventions you should know to see what they had to say about negative doubles since you referenced it.

There is a subsection:

Doubling to show four hearts

Under it it says "All balanced hands of 6+ points with four hearts must start by making a negative double." Hmm, what happened to having the other minor?

This is far more common of what even beginners learn these days. The book contradicted itself, what a shocker. As I said, when negative Xs were invented, they showed the unbid suits. Now they don't.

It also says that in the auction 1m 1H X, X shows 4 spades and 1S shows 5 spades. It says nothing about the other minor.

[PhantomSac]

A google search for "negative doubles"

http://home.comcast....idge/negdbl.htm

"This solution is the negative double. To use this convention, you and partner agree that if you open the bidding and the opponent makes a direct suit overcall, a double by responder is NOT for penalty. Instead, it shows:

* At least a fair response (7+ pts.) AND
* 4-card length in at least one of the unbid suits -- usually the unbid major suit. (Some pairs agree that if the two unbid suits are majors -- for example, after 1C by partner, 1D by RHO -- a negative double promises 4 cards in both suits. "

Says nothing about minors, just that you show 4 cards in the unbid major, and only show 2 suits if there are 2 unbid majors.

Later confirms this with "If you have 4-card support for the suit partner has shown with the double, you should always show it. "

Note suit, singular.

Second hit:

http://en.wikipedia....Negative_double

"In understandings regarding negative doubles, the emphasis is on major suit lengths. "

"After 1m – (1♠), in contrast to the prior sequence, most experts prefer the negative double here to show at least four hearts – not exactly four hearts."

Note, nothing said about minors.

Third link:

http://www.bridgeguy...tiveDouble.html

"If the opening is a Minor suit and the overcall is a Major suit, then the Negative Double means a 4-card suit in the other Major suit. By using the Negative Double to show this 4-card suit, your partner will take further action."

Nothing said about minors or "support for both unbid suits."

etc etc. Hopefully you can see you were wrong. These were not cherry picked, they were the first three google links.

[PhantomSac]

For fun:

fourth hit:

http://www.math.corn...lk/negative.htm

"Showing a Major Suit. If only one major has been bid, a negative double promises the other major. For example:
1D — (1S) — Dbl: Promises 4 hearts and 6 points,
and denies the ability to bid 2.

Since a bid of 2 requires 5 hearts and 10 points, responder must either have only 4 hearts or have less than 10 points (or both)."

Nothing said about the unbid minor/support for partner's minor.

Fifth hit:

http://www.rpbridge.net/5a00.htm

"In the majority of cases the negative double is used when there is exactly one unbid major suit, the primary purpose being to locate a trump fit in that suit. This brings up an important rule:

If there is one unbid major suit, the double shows four or more cards in that suit."

One example he gives for a negative double is xxx AKxxx T9x xx over a 1S overcall.

Nothing said about minors.

I am bored but you can keep going down the google list until you find someone that agrees with your definition, but maybe with all of these links etc plus people who play bridge every day of their life you will believe that people do not play a negative X as showing diamonds (or saying anything at all about minors).

[hotShot]

I think the conflict the majority can't resolve is, that if a neg. double is forcing, how can responding the preference be a reverse?

[Siegmund]

I suppose it's really a semantic difference. To me, "it's the smallest lie on these cards" and "it is the system bid on these cards" are not the same thing. If it's a sufficiently common lie, then yes, one ought to consider making it an official system bid, and one ought to consider the effect of that on the rest of one's system.

The best parallel I can think of is opening 1NT with a 5-card major - where the realization that it was sometimes a sensible distortion no doubt occurred to people as far back as they ever played 5-card majors, but it took until somewhere around 1980 for anybody to dare to mention the possibility in a mainstream book and another 10 years after that for it to become the usual advice for novices.

Yes, 25 Conventions is an 11-year-old book and not a book I particularly care for. My point is that books of that age are what people are currently buying and putting on their bookshelves, and looking things up in when they want a source more authoritative than internet message board posts as to what is standard.

As for who has a better finger on the pulse of what the average player plays... I don't know you well enough to know; but as a general rule, I find that the top experts live in a rarefied atmosphere when they play against each other, and tend to accumulate a stable harem of clients who are willing to take the master's word as gospel. Some of them are rarely seen outside of the KOs and can play a whole regional seeing only ten opposing convention cards.
I don't claim to be better than adv++/exp-; but I spend my time playing pairs and selling books to a cross-section of tournament attendees; and am acutely aware of how sharp the regional differences in bidding preference are, even over distances of only a couple hundred miles. I am curious how different you find the bidding in NY and Texas, actually. I don't get farther east than Denver much, myself, and have learned the hard way not to speculate about what is normal for east coast 2/1ers.

[Codo]

I am with Siegesmund that there are big parts of the world, where the double
shows not just hearts- mine is one of it.

And here standard is negative to show both suits or a "plan".

That the majority of experts play it different is a sign that your idea of neg. double wmay be standard in some years everywhere. But right now, you are wellcommed to visit the club life here in Germany and watch and learn.
There are areas where your standard is not standard worldwide.

[PhantomSac]

lol ok whatever.

1) I have posted the first 5 google hits, all of them seem to back me up that 1C 1S X simply shows 4+ hearts and 6+ or 7+ points (and if more than 4 hearts less than 10 points).

2) I have offered my opinion as a professional bridge player who plays every day, mostly at the club, often in pair games at sectionals or regionals, often against normal tournament bridge players, that almost all of them would double with many hands that contain a doubleton diamond/not 4 clubs/whatever, regardless of their diamonds. Siegmund agreed with this and my example hands (well only explicitly with 1 of my example hands).

3) I noted that the one counter example, a book from 11 years ago, contradicts itself and says that all balanced hands with 6+ points and 4 hearts have to double 1S (sure sounds like 44(32) is possible or 3433!).

4) 2 other top experts have posted in this thread stating that they think 2D should be a reverse, which presumably means they do not think that X shows diamonds. Siegmund thinks some experts are sheltered from what people play, but they didn't just start out as experts. They played a lot of hands with and against a lot of people. Quoting books from 11 years ago for what is normal now while implying that JDonn is out of touch with what people do now is funny, since JDonn might not have even played 11 years ago.

I don't know what else I can do to convince anyone that the standard meaning and practice of a negative double in this auction is to do it without concern for your minor suit holdings. Obv you should find 4-4 heart fits. If you still don't believe me that's fine I guess.

At the very least I no longer feel like the burden is on me to prove my point. The evidence overwhelmingly seems to suggest that my view is the majority view, so hopefully Siegmund will realize that his post:

Quote

Having run into it twice in one day today - let me just say that I feel Justin, Josh, et al. overestimate how many modern bidding trends have become (or should be) standard, even more so than Hardy did with his rather ambitiously titled book.

and

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But if we are talking just about "standard", without qualifiers -- you're going to have a really long wait until 1♣-1♠-X saying absolutely nothing about diamonds is the usual way of playing it.

Was off base, at least in this situation wrt what a negative X of 1S shows in this auction. GL everyone.

[PhantomSac]

Codo, on Feb 3 2010, 05:51 AM, said:

I am with Siegesmund that there are big parts of the world, where the double
shows not just hearts- mine is one of it.

And here standard is negative to show both suits or a "plan".

That the majority of experts play it different is a sign that your idea of neg. double wmay be standard in some years everywhere. But right now, you are wellcommed to visit the club life here in Germany and watch and learn.
There are areas where your standard is not standard worldwide.

Yes I heard of tribal clans in india who do not even play negative doubles. Why did we even assume negative doubles here, I mean the OP did not state that double was negative, and there are some parts of the world where negative doubles are not standard like in those tribal clans.

You post on an american website, and BBO is an american company run by...americans. The people who play there are predominately american. The people who post here are predominately american.

When nothing is said, we can assume standard bidding. If we cannot assume certain standards, then everything must be spelled out, and it's grossly inefficient. We all assume 5 card majors here. I would say that 5 card majors are standard. Are there parts of the world where 5 card majors are not standard? Yes! Does that mean we cannot assume 5 card majors? No.

In my humblest opinion, a negative double showing nothing about diamonds is standard. I honestly didn't know this would even be controversial or cause a debate. I don't know what happens in the tribal indian clans, or in the clubs in Germany, but I'm not really going to feel bad for not considering what the Germans might play when talking about what standard is. At the very least I am very confident on what standard in USA is, and that is what is assumed on the forums. Sorry if that insults you as a German, if this was a German forum I would not assume such things. We don't assume polish club on this forum even though it is standard.

When discussing with Siegmund what "standard" was I knew he was talking from the context of an american. He and I simply disagree about what is standard, fair enough. But it is completely assinine to disagree with my definition of standard because of what happens in clubs in Germany, or Poland, or anywhere else.

In fact most posts on this forum are completely assinine. Much respect to Siegmund for arguing his points with reason etc and actually seemingly trying to find where the truth lies, rather than say retarded things. I disagree with you but respect how you discuss things.

Good night!

[hanp]

2D, reverse.

I don't live in the US but I do play negative doubles.

[gnasher]

I don't live in the USA, but I play the double as promising only hearts, 2♦ as a forcing reverse, and 3♦ as a splinter for hearts. I'd assume that without agreement, playing with any reasonably good tournament player.

[gwnn]

Siegmund, on Feb 3 2010, 09:51 AM, said:

A small minority of them -- I don't know how small, maybe it's 5% maybe its 20% -- will have explicitly agreed that the double promises hearts and says nothing whatsoever about diamonds.

Completely disagree. I played a lot of tournament bridge in Romania, Hungary and Iceland and I routinely asked people whom I considered likely to promise both suits... They never, I mean NEVER said "it shows both suits". I know some players who play it that way, but they are only club players. I agree though that only few would think 2D is forcing and I also agree that it's logically unsound.

edit: I mean I know it's possible that Romania and Hungary have much more advanced bridge players than USA but I personally don't consider it a likely possibility.

This post has been edited by gwnn: 2010-February-03, 06:39

[hanp]

By the way, there is an excellent book by Marty Bergen called "Negative doubles" that talks in great detail about issues like these.

[hanp]

PhantomSac, on Feb 3 2010, 06:20 AM, said:

You post on an american website, and BBO is an american company run by...americans. The people who play there are predominately american. The people who post here are predominately american.

Not a very convincing argument imo.

[hatchett]

I also don't live in US and agree with hanp and gnasher.

[manudude03]

It was late when I posted the topic, didn't quite expect it to be this lively. I'm of the school that 2♦ is not a reverse (if it was, this problem would be a little too easy ). A negative double for me doesn't necessarily promise both unbid suits, but here it would be at least 4 hearts and be able to handle whatever partner bids. FWIW I asked a few of the top locals here if they would play 2♦ here as a reverse when a similar sequence occured a couple of weeks ago (1C-[1H]-X-2D) and it was unaminous that it was not a reverse.

It really isn't good to be showing squences that say 1m-1♠-X, since its completely different if it was a 1♦ opening (doubler can just have 4 hearts and 6 points and doesn't care if opener bids 2♣ since a 2♦ preference is availble)

The point of the topic was more about what to do in the later auction. As it was, our bidding went:

1♣-(1♠)-X
2♠-3♥
4♥-P

When I bid 4♥, part of me was wondering if this seemed like an underbid (slam is good opposite ♥AJxxx and ♣Q).

Scoring: IMP

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Clubs were 2-1, hearts were not 5-0, but I won't say how many it made (it was a flat board though somehow). It was the only 1 of 4 slams our way that we missed. Not everyday you play a 24 board match where you make more slams than games .

[jjbrr]

For a long time I played 2♦ not reverse. Now I feel strongly it should be.

[pooltuna]

jjbrr, on Feb 3 2010, 12:05 PM, said:

For a long time I played 2♦ not reverse. Now I feel strongly it should be.

The solution is for those who think a 2♦ call should not be a reverse post some hands for opener which are screwed on this auction I will attempt

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as an example for those who think it is a reverse to show how they will handle the hand. At this point I haven't put a lot of thought in to and so have not taken either side but to be fair I have an old fashioned view that suggests to me that it shows ♥ and a plan i.e. ♣ tolerance if no ♦.

[jdonn]

Pooltuna rebidding 1NT doesn't promise a spade stopper.