Tuesday, June 12, 2007 6:13 PM

Hand Evaluation – Clarifying Doubles

PITBULLS:

The power of D.S.I.P. theory is the ability to clarify your previous bidding. With a double , you announce your intentions to partner, tell her of the lack of duplication of value in the opponents suit , announce the nature of your HCP’s ( controls vrs soft values ) & the overall strength of your hand. Your previous bidding has probably announced your shape , so these are just pieces to the puzzle leading to the final solution. The best part of playing D.S.I.P. doubles is bringing the partnership into the final bidding decision.

Everybody vulnerable , Susan Culham held ♠AKxxxx ♥x ♦xx ♣A10xx , heard a strong NT to her left & a 2♦ transfer by BJ Trelford. Susan overcalled 2♠ , LHO passed , partner raised to 3♠. Now BJ Trelford used D.S.I.P. theory to his advantage to clarify his transfer bid. He made a balance of power double to clarify his transfer as a game forcing hand as he held 10 HCP. The double gets passed to opener who now bids 4♥. This gets passed around to Susan so now what ?

Susan needs to clarify her hand. She has an excellent playing hand ( stiff in opponents suit) , 3 quick tricks for defense so would like to bid 4♠ either as a sacrifice or to make. Bidding 4♠ is single handed though as partner could have any number of hands. Why not clarify your hand with a double & transfer the decision to partner ? Doubling 4♥ for penalty is ridiculous bidding. The opponents have bid strongly to their 4♥ game thereby announcing to the table they own this auction. Susan chose to pass as she did not know the nature of partner’s hand & did not want to “play hero”.

It turns out that 4♥ does make for +620 . Unfortunately Susan’s partner holds ♠xxxx ♥xx ♦Axxxx ♣xx so 4♠ is ice cold for +790 their way. It is presumptuous for this hand to bid 4♠ with an Ace & two hearts as the 2♠ bidder can have anything including defense to beat 4♥. Playing D.S.I.P. theory , this hand also gets into the act also to clarify his hand. He doubles 4♥ to clarify his 3♠ bid as offensive in nature & his limited HCP’s as a “transferable value” . He wants to bid 4♠ but he does not want to do it single handed so he transfers the decision to partner.

This is the first hand from actual play I have seen , that 3 players had an opportunity to make a D.S.I.P. double to clarify their intentions. Only BJ Trelford did though , as the opponents rightly did not want to take single handed actions for the partnership. The culprit of course is the stupid trump stack penalty double which should have no place in competitive auctions. Eventually , all good Bridge players will come around & see the advantage of D.S.I.P. double theory. It is just a matter of time.