[Bbradley62]

The double of 4♠ should be clearly understood as a penalty double. Why does North pull it after he has already adequately described his hand?

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If the answer is that North simulates and decides to pull, what assumption does he make about South's spade holding, to properly restrict the possibilities of South's hand? Hopefully, he is not allowing the possibility that South holds something like

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[barmar]

It's coming from a default bidding rule, with the comment:

; Provided that you expected to make at the previous level, pull
; partner's X with either ETR>OTR-2 (pull more frequently than when
; forcing P was available)

ETR = (length of our trumps) - (number of trumps promised)
I can't find a comment explaining what OTR is, I think it's the number of opponent's trumps we hold. Notice that the double doesn't show anything about your spade holding, it just shows a non-minimum opening bid.

[Bbradley62]

barmar, on 2012-April-30, 16:21, said:

Provided that you expected to make at the previous level...

I guess it's unclear to me what "the previous level" is, since my pass of 2♥, should have told partner that we should not expect to make 4♥.

barmar, on 2012-April-30, 16:21, said:

ETR = (length of our trumps) - (number of trumps promised)

I presume that in this case ETR=0, since North has shown "rebiddable" hearts, and that's exactly what he has.

barmar, on 2012-April-30, 16:21, said:

Notice that the double doesn't show anything about your spade holding, it just shows a non-minimum opening bid.

This may be semantics, but my pass of 2♥ should show that I do have a minimum opening bid. I guess the main purpose of my posting this hand is to suggest that my double should say something about my spade holding.

[cloa513]

Bbradley62, on 2012-April-29, 14:08, said:

The double of 4♠ should be clearly understood as a penalty double. Why does North pull it after he has already adequately described his hand?

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If the answer is that North simulates and decides to pull, what assumption does he make about South's spade holding, to properly restrict the possibilities of South's hand? Hopefully, he is not allowing the possibility that South holds something like

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I was going to say GIB doesn't understand your bidding- opponents have a double fit therefore you and your GIB clearly have a double fit in clubs and hearts and yet you didn't bid game or at least a forward moving bid.

[Bbradley62]

cloa513, on 2012-April-30, 19:36, said:

I was going to say GIB doesn't understand your bidding- opponents have a double fit therefore you and your GIB clearly have a double fit in clubs and hearts and yet you didn't bid game or at least a forward moving bid.

Yes, I took a somewhat deep position; my bidding probably better describes a hand like:

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in which case we certainly we'd prefer to defend 4♠X than play 5♥X.