Your Call: Chapter 1

Vil begins his new series with this interesting article - ed

One of the most underused, and misused, bids in bridge is DOUBLE. That is because often there is no clear understanding of when it is “Takeout” and when “Penalty”. Sometimes, admittedly, there can be some overlap, but any pair that can use the double properly will reap big benefits from their bidding. Let’s look at our first example, which comes from a session at X-Clubs, as will our second one in Chapter 2.

Board 11 from Tuesday 2/07/24
Dlr South Nil Vul

	AK987 T97 9 AKJ9
J32 K3 AJ4 QT763		Q64 QJ64 KQ82 54
	T5 A852 T7653 82

While not all pairs who played this deal produced identical bidding, many did bid as follows: West, at his turn, passed. That hand does not have any merit as an opening bid, but when North opens 1S and East and South both pass, West can surely test the water by bidding 2C. When many Wests did just that, different things happened. Some Norths persisted with 2S, played there and made, one or two with an overtrick when East dutifully led a club. Not good enough, because some Norths passed 2C and the result was down three, +150 leaving those with +110 or +140 fuming. But not as fuming as the one West who did what many other Wests did but ... after two passes, South made a perfectly logical and well reasoned decision to DOUBLE. Why was South’s double perfect in this situation? South’s initial PASS fully described the hand. South’s DOUBLE also fully described the hand, in fact even better than the initial pass: a maximum ‘non response’, no spade support but happy for partner to make any decision he wants. That decision was also 100% clear cut, PASS and take whatever pluses were coming. That turned out to be +500, and a 100% result in a field of 249 pairs who played this deal on the day.

Bidding is not just about making the first bid, it evolves as the sequence continues, and South’s weak five count that warranted passing partner’s opening bid became an effective ten count on defence when not only did South make the ace of hearts, South also contributed via a spade ruff. Some awful hands are better than others! And there can be no confusion about South’s double, can there?