Here’s your hand sitting east, EW vulnerable and you are
dealer:
♠ KQ10
♥ J8632
♦ AK10
♣ J6
A pretty normal 14 HCP 1H opener.
Here’s the bidding:
West North East South
1H Dbl
Rdbl * 2D P P
Dbl P ?
*10+ HCP, implies no fit
What’s that? My partner, who is a
teaching pro when playing with others, and I had only played a few times and
hadn’t established enough rapport to know what ambiguous bids mean. Is it
penalty or takeout or DSI (Do Something Intelligent)? I’ve got a run of the
mill 14 HCP opener, a seven-loser hand. We’re vulnerable. Can we make 3NT? If
we can make game we would have to set them four to get a good board (800 v.
600), which means we would have to take nine of the 13 tricks (in which event
we could make 3NT). Was it worth the risk? If we only set it three we only get
500 for a certain bottom board.
North was in one of the most
unenviable positions in bridge in this auction. Almost by definition in an
auction that goes as this one did; 1 of a suit, dbl, rdbl, the fourth hand
can’t have much. Two players, opener and doubler, are pretty much promising
opening hands, at least 12 HCP each and redouble is promising at least 10 HCP.
That’s a minimum of 34 HCP, leaving fourth hand with a maximum of six, and
probably less.
However when you find yourself in
that position in fourth seat, you must bid if you have an unbid four
card suit. Why? Because if you don’t bid and it is passed around to doubler,
doubler has to guess what is in your hand. Where is your longest suit? You have
to tell her immediately by bidding your unbid longest suit if it’s got at least
four cards in it. If you pass, you are telling partner you don’t have an unbid
four card suit but can support any unbid suit she bids, so she may freely bid
her longest suit, confident that you have at least three of them.
Here are the four hands:
North
♠
54
♥
Q954
♦
6542
♣
Q74
West East
♠ J982 ♠
KQ10
♥ A10 ♥
J8632
♦ QJ9 ♦ AK10
♣ A1032 ♣ J6
South
♠
A763
♥
K7
♦
873
♣
K985
Sitting north was a
teaching pro playing with a student. The student’s takeout double was dubious
at best and this hand exemplifies why. When my partner redoubled, North was
required to bid his longest unbid suit, but South should know he doesn’t have
much, if anything. So he bid diamonds.
Have you decided yet
what you would do? I had a tough call because I didn’t know exactly how strong
partner was. We might be able to make 3N. If so, we would have to set them four
doubled to get a good board. I decided to defend so passed my partner’s double,
knowing that it was a top or bottom decision. South, who got her partner into
this mess can’t do anything but pass with her three little diamonds. It was
their longest suit at 4-3 because the other two suits were 4-2.
I
figured that we had the bulk of the points and the only way they could make
tricks was by ruffing, so I led the AK10 of diamonds and we took the first
three tricks. It was downhill from there on for North. We took nine tricks (three
diamonds, two spades [declarer got the ace and a ruff with his fourth diamond],
two hearts and two clubs) for down 4, doubled, 800 for us and a top board.
The hand was played
12 times, nine EW were in 3NT, making three and four; two made four spades,
although only one bid it.
If there’s a lesson
here, it’s to be careful with your takeout doubles. With only two quick tricks
and only 10 HCP, that’s not a hand with which to make a takeout double in
second seat because it puts partner on the horns of a dilemma if LHO redoubles,
which happens a lot. And if you are playing against experienced players, they
double low level contracts more than the average player.
After the hand was
over I asked my partner what his double was. He looked at our 800 point score
and said, “penalty.”
