Evening star., 1934-03-29
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East bid a spade I doubled. West
passed, my partner bid two hearts,
East two spades. -Four hearts by me.
pass, pass, double As you see, they
could not beat this contract; yet
when you look at the combined
hands you realize that nothing could
make your partner bid unless you
force him to do So If you merely
bid for you. You cannot afford to
make a forcing jump overcall as I'M
less your partner has hearts with you.
the slaughter may be horrible. If they
bid four spades against you, you are
trapped. You cannot know that you
can beat that contract; it may be that
you have fine save in five hearts
or that may be calamity. especially
if your cards will take four tricks in
defense. You are likely to decide
wrongly. But if you double and
cause your partner to bid hearts, you
know at once that you cannot go
down more than one or two tricks at
the most in four hearts. You can
even push them up to five spades if
they rebid instead of doubling you:
and now you can double and collect a
remunerative penalty.
For Strategic Double.
You may safely use this double
whenever you have a safe suit in
your hand, so that you are willing to
bid this suit and play the hand
doubled in it at whatever level you
may have to bid it as a result of
your partners response. You must
feel reasonably sure that the penalty
which you might incur If the cards
are 50 placed as to punish you in the
worst way will not exceed the score
that would accrue to the opponents
II you let them obtain the declara-
ton. In the instances given, you
had doubled spades when hearts was
your safety suit. Thus you knew
that whatever your partners response
might be, you would not have to bid
hearts at more than the level of two.
II your suit is clubs, you must be
prepared to bid not only two but
three clubs, as your partner is likely
to bid two hearts or diamonds. I have
in mind a hand such as
sp. XXX Di. Ak oJxx
Hts. Cl @ Jx
or
Hts. Xxx ci Ak oxxxx
which are good doubles of a spade
bid. Almost surely your partner will
respond with two hearts, and now you
must bid three in your minor suit.
Bids of this kind are sometimes
doubled for business at the three
leNel. especially when they appear to
be rescuing the partners response
to the double. Not infrequently these
doubled contracts can be made. In
connection with the first hand, If your
dummy contains no more than the
queen of spades or the king of clubs,
you are likely to make three odd in
diamonds For the other. you do not
need much more than the queen-ten
of diamonds. You may we'll object
that against such freakish hands the
opponents are hardly likely to double
at three; they will surely go on to
their game in spades. In principle,
yes; but actually it is amazing how
the double will disconcert them even
with so extreme a distribution-es-
pecially If you have trick in spades
as in the first hand. Then again
you do not always have to bid your
big suit at once; a little psychic in
termediate bid in no trumps when not
vulnerable will often get you double
at the right spot when you get to it,
With the first hand If the bidding
went one spade, double, pass, two