[Cascade]

Not convinced by East's double of 3♥.

West's pass is at least as bad.

I don't see how you can play a system where double by east is not primarily aimed at getting to 3NT at least in the first instance. I am sitting there waiting for north to pass planning to bid 3♥ to ask partner for a stopper because I have some running or near running tricks but north bids 3♥ in front of me and I have to give up on our most likely and highest scoring game. That makes no sense to me at all.

Not only does it disrupt us from bidding our most frequent game (given I don't have four spades) it takes away definition from an immediate 4♣ which when playing double with the flexible hands shows a distributional and very good hand so is a springboard for slam.

[mikeh]

Cascade, on 2015-June-23, 23:22, said:

Not convinced by East's double of 3♥.

West's pass is at least as bad.

I don't see how you can play a system where double by east is not primarily aimed at getting to 3NT at least in the first instance. I am sitting there waiting for north to pass planning to bid 3♥ to ask partner for a stopper because I have some running or near running tricks but north bids 3♥ in front of me and I have to give up on our most likely and highest scoring game. That makes no sense to me at all.

Not only does it disrupt us from bidding our most frequent game (given I don't have four spades) it takes away definition from an immediate 4♣ which when playing double with the flexible hands shows a distributional and very good hand so is a springboard for slam.

it is a question of frequency. fwiw, my view is that it will be far less common to be able to count 9 winners with a heart stop than it is to have a desire to bid but no direction. your experience may differ.

[Cascade]

mikeh, on 2015-June-23, 23:28, said:

it is a question of frequency. fwiw, my view is that it will be far less common to be able to count 9 winners with a heart stop than it is to have a desire to bid but no direction. your experience may differ.

You don't need to count nine winners you need to estimate nine winners opposite what partner has shown. Which is a decent 8-10 plus for a negative double at 2Maj. I usually play a little more over 2♠ than ove 2♥ as here. But I am allowed to bid hoping for a couple of cards and maybe a finesse or something working. I don't have to wait for 9 (or 8 runners plus partner's stopper).

[MrAce]

Cascade, on 2015-June-24, 03:30, said:

You don't need to count nine winners you need to estimate nine winners opposite what partner has shown. Which is a decent 8-10 plus for a negative double at 2Maj. I usually play a little more over 2♠ than ove 2♥ as here. But I am allowed to bid hoping for a couple of cards and maybe a finesse or something working. I don't have to wait for 9 (or 8 runners plus partner's stopper).

It's MP. But it is insane to me even at IMPs.

But anyway, I am having hard time to understand your goal by double. Here is what I think...

1-Do not give negative doubler anything more than 10 hcp. If he has, you opened and he will definitely not sell it out to 3♥
2-You are talking about your most likely game as 3 NT, when you have a stiff ♥ and non solid ♣ suit. How can you possibly get a good result in the long run by seeking 3 NT vs pd's 8-10 hcp when you have stiff in their 9 card suit? Which hcps of your pd are you suggesting to be heart stopper? A of ♦? Will it cut it? Why do you believe the risk you are taking just to find such a borderline or worse game is worth it at MP?

[cherdano]

I blame North. Raising with such a defensive 4333 is crazy. ♦AQ offside is a bit unlucky but still the -300 is well-deserved.

[MrAce]

cherdano, on 2015-June-24, 04:10, said:

I blame North. Raising with such a defensive 4333 is crazy. ♦AQ offside is a bit unlucky but still the -300 is well-deserved.

North tried to follow "The Law" I guess, even though N hand has almost each and every single negative adjustment that can possibly be applied to a hand.

[Cascade]

MrAce, on 2015-June-24, 03:58, said:

It's MP. But it is insane to me even at IMPs.

But anyway, I am having hard time to understand your goal by double. Here is what I think...

1-Do not give negative doubler anything more than 10 hcp. If he has, you opened and he will definitely not sell it out to 3♥
2-You are talking about your most likely game as 3 NT, when you have a stiff ♥ and non solid ♣ suit. How can you possibly get a good result in the long run by seeking 3 NT vs pd's 8-10 hcp when you have stiff in their 9 card suit? Which hcps of your pd are you suggesting to be heart stopper? A of ♦? Will it cut it? Why do you believe the risk you are taking just to find such a borderline or worse game is worth it at MP?

Your logic is flawed.

Firstly, I have sold out relatively successfully to the opponent's partscore many times when I have 11 hcp after my partner has opened.

Secondly I made no claims about the most likely game given the hand in the opening post opposite such a hand. I was talking about methods, not about the correct action on this particular hand. I had already criticised east's double and west's pass of it. Then I went on to talk about the methods one might use in this position. You don't get to pick up your hand notice you have a non-solid suit and a stiff in the suit the opponents are going to bid then choose your methods. You choose your methods and then look at your hand and listen to the auction.

So you are in a spot where we have opened, the opponents have made a preemptive overcall and raise, partner has made a negative double showing presumably four spades. We do not have four spades and we do not have a heart stopper. The question is what is our most likely game? I presumed no heart stopper and no four spades because with those hands we might be able to bid 3NT or some number of spades.

I put these constraints into a double dummy solver, yes admittedly there is a double dummy bias but I had no better tool so I was stuck with that and my experience. These are the frequencies I got for various games:

5♣ about 10%
4♠ about 15%
3NT about 35%.

They are all below 50% because frequently we will have no game --- all those times we have a minimum balanced hand for example and partner has nothing spectacular.

You may think differently, its a free world. On the basis of this however I think it is important to have a tool to get to 3NT. I usually have a generic rule that if the opponents bid a suit at the three level in a competitive auction that double in the first instance is aimed at discovering whether we can stop that suit for 3NT.

Whether double is the right bid on any particular hand is another issue. One that I answered in the negative for the particular hand in this post.

[MrAce]

Cascade, on 2015-June-24, 15:47, said:

Your logic is flawed.

Ok, I am having hard time to understand. So I am asking again, do you think double by E is acceptable or not? You can play double what ever you want to play, would you double with E hand or not? Or do you think it is close?

I believe it is not even close.

[Cascade]

Cascade, on 2015-June-23, 23:22, said:

Not convinced by East's double of 3♥.

MrAce, on 2015-June-24, 16:20, said:

Ok, I am having hard time to understand. So I am asking again, do you think double by E is acceptable or not? You can play double what ever you want to play, would you double with E hand or not? Or do you think it is close?

I believe it is not even close.

Perhaps my initial comment was understated. I am "not convinced" means that I do not see the argument for it or I am not swayed by it. Yes we are in agreement, I also believe it is not close. Essentially double here is pretty much game forcing showing extra values. I mean what contract can we play that is not game? 4m that is a pretty small and unrewarding target.

[MrAce]

Cascade, on 2015-June-25, 01:51, said:

Perhaps my initial comment was understated. I am "not convinced" means that I do not see the argument for it or I am not swayed by it. Yes we are in agreement, I also believe it is not close. Essentially double here is pretty much game forcing showing extra values. I mean what contract can we play that is not game? 4m that is a pretty small and unrewarding target.

Ok I totally misunderstood what you meant then, my bad sorry.

[MrAce]

Ok here is the poll results for E hand in BW

http://bridgewinners...g-problem-8448/

PASS = 30 votes 88%
DOUBLE =2 votes 6%
4♣ =2 votes 6%


And here is the poll results for what should W do IF East doubles.

http://bridgewinners...g-problem-8455/

PASS = 30 votes 91%
Other bids have each 1 vote for 3%.

Majority does not mean that a bid is correct. To me what matters is who voted for what. However overwhelming majority like this with no well knows player vote in the very small minority while there are many good players in the overwhelming majority pretty much says it all imo.

We can easily assume that E is 90 % and W is 10% in fault up to all level of players. It is 100% E and 0% W fault among better players. I abstained in both polls despite my known opinion of calling double by E "insane" and PASS by W obvious.

[PhantomSac]

I would not be so upset to defend 3H X with the EW hands if I knew them.

Don't get me wrong easts X is way too aggressive but w/e, it was an unlucky layout of the opponents cards to have only 4 winners with the AK AK of blacks and the AQ of diamonds.

[MrAce]

PhantomSac, on 2015-June-25, 22:50, said:

I would not be so upset to defend 3H X with the EW hands if I knew them.

Don't get me wrong easts X is way too aggressive but w/e, it was an unlucky layout of the opponents cards to have only 4 winners with the AK AK of blacks and the AQ of diamonds.

This is exactly my point to the criticisers of passing the double by W hand. Even against this hand of E, it could end up good.

[rmnka447]

Put me down as one who thinks East's double of 3 ♥ is insane. East's proper action is PASS.