[H Potter]

Teams, all Vulnerable

RHO opens 2D (natural & weak), you Pass, LHO bids 3N (To play), partner doubles.

What is your agreement for the X?

[mycroft]

I want to tell a story. It was three Toronto NABCs ago, and I saw my bridge teacher one day when I was going to kibitz the big event if I didn't find a game. He also just "took the day off" from his job, and wandered around. We decided to play and found another pair for the A/X teams.

About round 5, we hit this pair, and my RHO tells us he's relaxing after the WSOP. He's a poker pro in Vegas, says he probably works about 45, 50 days a year (but *long* days), cash games to make money, tournaments for prestige and sometimes great payouts.

The fourth or fifth board of the set, it goes 3♣ all white on my left, 3NT on my right, all pass. My random 8 count isn't doing much, I make my normal lead. We run one suit, give up a trick in a second, partner takes the second club trick and runs the second suit. 3NT-5, +250, lose 5 into +450. Partner had a problematic 16, and didn't play the "intermediate" bridge player, but full-time poker player, for a stone-cold bluff. Which my partner the world junior medallist admitted to immediately after, because he was who he was.

Now that I've told that story, what's partner's double?

[DavidKok]

My agreement for X here is

Spoiler

"I expect to defeat 3NT. Do not pull without extreme shape".

As an aside, I have at some point in the past played 3NT as two-way here, either "strong and intending to make" or "a weak raise that is happy for opener to rebid 5m over their 4M". When I played that I alerted all the 3NT bids, and the weak option came up once for every 10 strong situations or so (most of the time with a weak raise it is better not to consult opener). On balance I think my alerts might have created more confusion than they averted.

[jillybean]

H Potter, on 2024-November-01, 10:29, said:

Teams, all Vulnerable

RHO opens 2D (natural & weak), you Pass, LHO bids 3N (To play), partner doubles.

What is your agreement for the X?

blood
penalty

He isnt making a t/o double at the 3nt level, if he has game in either major, he will bid 4♦

[mikeh]

One can have whatever agreement one chooses but I’m assuming that the OP is asking ‘what would be considered normal in the absence of specific agreements’.

That isn’t, itself, probably quite specific enough, since there are a lot of regional (in the geographic sense) concepts of ‘standard’.

Having said that, I think the most plausible agreement is that double shows a strong hand and the opinion that they are going down. Now, occasionally one will end up doubling and catch partner with a horrible hand and the opps make 9 or more tricks. C’est la vie.

Any other approach is pretty much conceding the ability of RHO to psyche.

Back many years ago, when I was a pretty good club level player, I routinely psyched in such situations, thinking that it was fun to steal boards.

Nowadays, and for many years,I don’t psyche against non-experts. Plus such psyches aren’t as effective against experts as they are against less skilled/knowledgeable players so I psyche rarely. But d definitely suspect a psyche if, for example, I picked up 18+ hcp against anyone I suspected would be capable of psyching.

Btw, that’s not the same as saying I don’t psyche…it’s just that I choose my psyches, against experts, more carefully. Making a so-called baby psyche actually gives good opps too much information.

[TMorris]

Interesting replies. I have only had this happen once and had no idea what to do so got a bad board.

I posted (on here I think) and got the advice that double of 3nt should be take out of the originally bid suit on the basis that the 3nt bidder would usually have support for this suit (especially of course it if was a psyche). this would have worked very well on the hand I had.

[helene_t]

The 3nt will usually be based on a diamonds fit, regardless of whether it is genuine, a gamble or a psyche. So t/o of diamonds will be a frequent holding.

Doubler could have a running heart suit and then it would be a shame if p takes the double out to 4sp. If double is t/o a hand with running hearts would, then, have to either bid 4h or pass. But a penalty double would have the advantage that a syrong hand can double and bid 4h after they run to 4d, thereby creating an fp so p can gets involved. If you play double as t/o , a direct 4h will get a very wide range.

I am not sure what I prefer on balance.