[dellache]

Scoring: IMP

You are South
Pass Pass (4S) Your-bid
WHY ?

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[whereagles]

Easy pass. Not going anywhere. Especially with a passed pard.

[Fluffy]

I woudl double at other vulnerabilities, but not on this one

[Siegmund]

Oddly, I am willing to gamble on forcing partner to pick a suit at this vulnerability, but might not be at others

I am old-fashioned enough to play 4NT as three-suited and double as cards here, but that probably means you want to count my vote as a vote for takeout-double.

[655321]

I would make a takeout double.

LHO is a passed hand as well, which reduces the risk of being doubled for a number, or defending 4♠XX making.

[mikeh]

655321, on Jan 12 2010, 04:57 PM, said:

I would make a takeout double.

LHO is a passed hand as well, which reduces the risk of being doubled for a number, or defending 4♠XX making.

It must be nice to play adjective bridge.

Most players use the double as announcing ownership of the hand...and expect their partner to pass unless it is clear to bid...which is not the approach used over takeout doubles. Thus, if partner pulls he is running to a contract he expects to make rather than away from defending a contract he fears will make.

While he can still have a hand on which he should pull, his passed hand status removes some possible hand types, on which he pulls, from consideration.

I would guessestimate that he will/should be passing a non-adjectival double well over 50% of the time, and I doubt that we will score very well when he does. Even if we beat it, we're not getting rich.

As for not getting doubled, it is true that LHO may be unable to double and even true that he may raise to 5♠, especially at this heat.

It is that latter chance that almost convinces me to bid 4N. 4N is better than double unless you have agreed that partner only passes the double with trump winners...and I don't know anyone who thinks like that. I confess that I would love to bid 4N and have the opps compete to 5♠ -1.

But I am a coward on this hand, and pass.

[gnasher]

mikeh, on Jan 12 2010, 11:10 PM, said:

655321, on Jan 12 2010, 04:57 PM, said:

I would make a takeout double.

LHO is a passed hand as well, which reduces the risk of being doubled for a number, or defending 4♠XX making.

It must be nice to play adjective bridge.

Bridge World Standard uses the same adjective:

BWS 2001 said:

A double of an opening through four spades is for takeout.

[655321]

mikeh, on Jan 12 2010, 05:10 PM, said:

655321, on Jan 12 2010, 04:57 PM, said:

I would make a takeout double.

It must be nice to play adjective bridge.

I always play takout doubles over a 4♠ opening. I am sorry if that bothers you, but it is always my agreement, and there is no adjectival bridge required. I know there are some posters who cannot believe that some people play differently, so in an attempt to forestall criticism from such people I wrote 'I would make a takeout double' instead of 'I would double'. Obviously I failed to achieve this.

[jdonn]

I am a coward too, so I prefer not to bid 4NT (showing 2 suits) because I am scared of playing a 4-2 fit when partner is 4612. I guess that means I'm making a (takeout) double.

[mikeh]

gnasher, on Jan 12 2010, 05:16 PM, said:

mikeh, on Jan 12 2010, 11:10 PM, said:

655321, on Jan 12 2010, 04:57 PM, said:

I would make a takeout double.

LHO is a passed hand as well, which reduces the risk of being doubled for a number, or defending 4♠XX making.

It must be nice to play adjective bridge.

Bridge World Standard uses the same adjective:

BWS 2001 said:

A double of an opening through four spades is for takeout.

I am a lawyer and therefore prone to pedantry.

I am a litigation lawyer and therefore prone to phrasing as assertions of obvious truth matters that are legitimately subject to differing interpetations.

Oh well. Nuances that are or should be apparent in ordinary discourse tend to be lost, or misconstrued when reading posts on the internet....and I don't claim to be immune to missing or misconstruing the nuances of others.

[ggwhiz]

Count me in for double. -590, -690, whatever isn't as painfull as letting them steal and beats the telephone number you might go for bidding 4nt.

The passed hand surely can't redouble no matter what they have and if the 4S bidder can AND does, it's a parlay and I will buy the first round.

[Jlall]

Obv double

[peachy]

If I wanted to make a "takeout dbl" that would be shown by bid of 4NT (takeout).
Double is not takeout, it would be showing a strong hand, strong enough to suggest it is our hand; it will be left in much (if not most) of the time. I am inclined to Dbl, although would love to have a little bit more for it but not willing to unilaterally bid 4NT for takeout.

[flytoox]

I will dbl.

[eyhung]

It's my understanding that historically, the double of 4♠ was values/optional, but the modern trend is for the double of 4♠ to be takeout. I know in all my partnerships I play double of 4♠ as takeout. So I would double, and no adjectives would be needed. (Maybe a belated expletive, though.)

[the hog]

Obvious pass opposite a passed partner.

[Jlall]

eyhung, on Jan 12 2010, 11:28 PM, said:

It's my understanding that historically, the double of 4♠ was values/optional, but the modern trend is for the double of 4♠ to be takeout.  I know in all my partnerships I play double of 4♠ as takeout.  So I would double, and no adjectives would be needed.  (Maybe a belated expletive, though.)

I don't understand the difference between optional/values and takeout maybe, but I'm pretty sure "optional/values" is closer to the expert standard/modern. Actually 655321 is the only expert I know about who actually means takeout as I interpret it when he says takeout.

Maybe I am wrong about terminology, so I will try to clarify how I play it.

I would only pull this double with a hand that expects to make something at the 5 level, and a hand that has shape (would always pass with a balanced hand pretty much, except maybe 5332 with 3 small spades). Ergo, I end up passing the double a lot.

I would only double with a hand that could handle a pull. I could easily have a balanced hand NT, as long as it didn't have much values in spades. For instance, I would always double with xxx AKx AQxx Kxx, and I would never double with KJx AKxx AQxx xx. Luckily I never hold the latter hand.

My take on it is that my style is very much expert standard, of course I could be wrong, and my take on 655321's style is that it is very much more takeout oriented than mine, and partner will pull far more often (but maybe that's wrong, I have never specifically discussed it with 655321).

How do you resolve that with doubling with this hand? Well in my view we often beat 4S when we have this many prime cards, sometimes beating them 2. They also often make it. It my opinion, this is not a big deal either way. We usually beat them, but we lose slightly more imps the times they are making. I would consider the times partner passes to basically be a wash (but given that I feel I almost always have a cardplay advantage, I certainly don't shy away from this). However, the times that partner BIDS over our double are clearly a huge huge huge gain. It won't happen that often given my spade void, but when it does we are gaining massively, possibly a double game swing. Ergo doubling is super obvious to me, and not inconsistent with my general style.

[Jlall]

I will also add that "takeout" doesn't make much sense to me, in the sense that partner will pull a lot. Even if we are 3 suited short in spades, partner should be passing this double a ton. 4 tricks are way easier than 11 tricks. In my experience people who say this is takeout, and people who say this is values, seem to pull with the same frequency, and are thus basically playing this double the same way. Again, I don't know much about terminology, but I'm pretty confident that however you play this double, partner should be passing a lot just based on the nature of 5 over 4.

[shevek]

7♥. West will find it hard to pass at the vul.

[eyhung]

My personal definitions are:

Takeout: "I expect partner to bid".
Penalty: "I expect partner to pass".
Optional: "I have no idea whether partner will bid or pass and will be happy with either option."

To clarify the last, that means partner will probably only pull with significant but not ridiculous shape. Root and Pavlicek (which was written a long time ago) define the requirements to pull 4S-X as a 6-card suit. I do not expect my partners to need that much to pull, so that's why I said "modern trend is takeout" -- but then again, I also expect my partner to pass with no 5-card suit or 5332 shape, so my 4S takeout double is more optional than I implied. What we need is another adjective for a semi-takeout double, where you "prefer that partner bids but understand if he passes".

Definitions aside, on the actual hand, the spade void indicates to me that the most probable outcome is pass (because partner will have some spades to improve the chances of his holding a balanced hand), but if partner bids, we should be in a great spot.