Sunday,
February 22, 2004 8:31 AM
Hand
Evaluation - Permission to Bid ( Doubles )
PITBULLS:
If
you have bought into D.S.I.P. competitive double theory ,
you know there is no such thing as an ‘enforcer”
type trump stack
doubles in competitive auctions. A failure to
double does not mean that there is no duplication of value so gives you the green light to bid. In fact
, the pass has just the opposite
meaning .
After
partner has passed in a competitive auction , you wish
to bid again with a decent defensive hand ask
his permission by doubling. If partner’s hand is suitable offensively, he
will take the push otherwise the partnership will go for a plus in the doubled
contract.
Good players , using the law of total tricks , push their fit & suits to the limit . Quite often you will be sitting with 10-11 HCP’s but wondering what to do in a competitive auction. Trump stack penalty doubles were invented for punishing bad bidders. But what if you are playing good teams where bad bidders do not exist ? Even good players get bad trump breaks but that is rare so the frequency of doubles that show “cards’ are far more frequent. Now it comes down to which double is more useful to you in competition, trump stack or competitive.
You
have to get rid of the old mind set that penalty doubles in competition show trump stacks . Also get rid of the notion
that a pass encourages taking another bid in a competitive auction because
“partner did not double for penalty” . This was the
thinking around the time Bridge was invented but does not apply against good competition in today’s game.
Some
example auctions 1♦ - 1♠ - Dbl – 2♠
3♥ - 3♠ - ? ♠xx ♥Axxx ♦Kxx ♣QJxx
You want to bid 4♥ but if partner has
an unsuitable hand. you
would rather defend. You double , partner has ♠KQ10
♥Qxxx ♦AJ10xx ♣x says no thanks I would rather defend. 3♠ x goes for 300 as
does 4♥ x . Change partners hand to ♠xxx ♥KQJx ♦AQ10xx ♣x , he says O.K. lets try 4♥ by pulling the
double so that makes . 3♠ x is one down.
The
advantage of this method over the “trump stack” warning method is that in old competitive auctions single handed decisions
have to be made. If responder thinks their side can make 4♥, he must make the
decision for the partnership but
it could be very wrong. The “permission
to bid” double brings partners opinion
into the decision making process. The biggest advantage of this concept though
is taking the ambiguity out of the
penalty double in competition
. Knowing
that the double always shows “cards” rather than a trump stack, gives your side a competitive advantage.
Change
responders hand to ♠KQ10 ♥Kxxx ♦xx ♣Q10xx with the same auction , 3♠ is passed around to
partner. If he has an unsuitable hand for defense or bidding 4♥ , you will be
defending 3♠ undoubled.
Not the optimum result but better
then taking a minus in 4♥. The system fixed
you. If partner wants to bid 4♥ , he doubles so that
gets converted for the nice juicy plus. If responder passed & opener has a
trump stack double of 3♠, he must pass & take
a plus. Doubling will most likely get partner to pull to 4♥ not want you want.
D.S.I.P. doubles are sound in theory ,
as the opponents will be playing contracts doubled only if the doubler has a good
hand and
the other partner converts with a trump stack.
That’s one of the problems
with trump stack doubles,
as the weak opener must reluctantly pass so with the hint on how
to play the hand , the contract
quite often makes or only a small penalty is extracted. Traditional
penalty doubles are done
“backwards” in my opinion. You double with the trump stack so the
other hand regardless of the nature of the
hand has to leave it in. Quite often a recipe for disaster as they
wrap up the double if not pulled. The D.S.I.P. conversion makes sure there are defensive values in
the other hand as well as the bad trump break in the converters hand. Taking out insurance for defeating the contract
, so to speak.
D.S.I.P.
doubles are not for weak match point field or weak rubber Bridge games.
Trump stack penalty doubles were invented
for these games. These doubles assume good competition with the IMP scoring
scale. All world class
players play some variation of the
D.S.I.P. competitive double in today’s game. Quoting a recent Bridge World , Eric Rodwell said “we all
play these doubles now”.