[jgillispie]

I've been rereading Mike Lawrence's book on takeout doubles, and would like to fill a couple holes that need definition.

Mike explains some rather obvious ideas, including
- We don't play 1N
- Jumps are preemptive
- We don't redouble to play (ergo SOS)

This fills in most of the bids necessary to get by the majority of tournaments. However, I am curious as to how the bridge playing public defines these auctions:

(1♣/♦)-X-XX-1N
(1 banana)-X-XX-2banana

As they appear to be left without explanation in the book.

[mycroft]

1m = 11 or so, minimum.
X = 11 or so minimum.
XX = 11 or so (10+, but the lighter the minimum for opening, the heavier the XX).
Someone is going to have more than a minimum.

There aren't enough points in the deck to need definitions for either of those. Natural 1NT shows 8 or so of the 3 we have. Cuebid (without the XX) shows 12 of the 3 we have. You could, for the once in a lifetime it will come up, define them as wild two-suiters where even with your Qxxxxx, you might still make game. You could even make the cuebid natural, saying our best hope is playing their suit, I would have passed for penalty, for again the once in a lifetime it'll come up (but you could pass and pull to the cuebid).

But the big meanings for these calls would be "pick a suit", and you have a "pick a suit" call - PASS. If you want to have Pass = penalty, good luck to you; again, the once in a lifetime it's right, it'll be *really* right. Play 1NT as "you pick", then; but you're going down another trick in whatever you play doubled.

[Zelandakh]

I have no idea what Lawrence regards as standard but logical within the context you describe would be for 2bananas to be natural. I assume 1NT is used for 2 places over a major but that makes little sense here so the choice is between a fairly extreme 2-suiter (where we don't mind being a level higher to get to the right suit) or just to use it as a quasi-cue bid to warn partner that the opps have psyched and are trying to con us out of our hand.

[SteveMoe]

If you've ever faced a psyche XX, you will know the power of the cue bid. The hand that wants to cue bid as a natural bid loses nothing by passing first. 1NT should focus our side on 2-suits. They have the balance of power, so trying to win the race to 1N seems like a narrow success window. Bidding 1/1 here shows a 5-card suit and a pulse.

[mycroft]

Yes, the psychic redouble might get you. I didn't think of that. Never had it happen, though :-). Good answers - for the once in your lifetime it happens.