MFA

I don't agree. This is too conservative. Hmm, this reference is too old. I suppose you refer to his being English. Well, I'm from Denmark and roughly 80% of the Danish bridge elite play weak notrump. So we get lots of experience on this subject. :) Just to make sure: I'm not advocating 13+. Just saying that some 13hcp hands do double. And most 14s and 15s. Note that this actually means I could pass flat 15s! Sure they might wind up in difficulties. Bidding over your own penalty double takes good agreements and some experience. These troubles have to be dealt with - you cannot just refuse to double in the first place. ;) Well, I might! As you might know the expert style has moved dramatically towards these ugly one-level doubles on balanced and less-than-perfect shape. I'm not talking Reese, but the last decade or two of Bermuda Bowls etc. People ARE getting robbed, if they don't interfere in these situations. @ awm Nice post.

Was that: any 11+ & any 4-4 with the right suits? Yum-yum ;) Of course you could set up liberal criteria that make your double come more frequently than the penalty (strong hand) double. But the above are just not likely to help you to a good result. The penalty double is, and so is the absence of the penalty double when you bid something else and thus limit your hand better.

Needless to say, I disagree. You'll certainly be well positioned if and when one of your "penalty" doubles crops up. However, the more specific you make your double, the more rare its going to be. If you'd like, please provide a fairly concise description of the hand types that qualify for a "penalty" double. I can run a sim to estimate its frequency. Ok. What about any 14+? Most 14s and 15s would double, and some 13s too. So any 14+ should be a fair approx. Slim? 14,72% is not slim at all. View it this way, your analysis suggests that you are only a 14 to 23 dog of any game being your way. That is 40% of all the games. And this is just the "high card games" - the distributionally based ones make this even closer. I think your (by the way excellent) analysis supports my view. Against a 15-17NT you are only 0,1% to have 24+. THAT's slim. Against a 12-14NT you are 7,18%. That's not slim either. Say we interfere with a weak NT one time in 3. Then we have a game on sheer power some 20% of the time when we bid! Add all the distributional ones on few hcp! We simply can not miss out on most of these!

While I find your view of the double as a convention or not as fine, I don't understand your conclusion: "unclear". Surely having a "strong hand double" will catch the opponents much more often than first requiring 2nd hand to have some specific shapes to be able to double and then 4th hand to divine a pass when it's right. This setup won't happen very often. Anyway, too much talk of penalties (and this is largely my fault :) ). Against strong notrump you can view your interference completely as a part score battle. We don't have a game unless there is a big fit, and then we'll ususally find out. This approach doesn't work against weak NT. We have many games on sheer power, so we must find out. The penalty double is a great tool in that department, since it announces strength.

Yes, you are probably right, in isolation it might cost you more to bury your fit with a weak NT opening than the occasional big penalty. However I see this as a trade-off for getting fast to 1NT and leave your opponents guessing about leads and competitive moves. Being able to show some fancy two-suiter with double surely does not compensate for the lack of a penalty double of the weak notrump. Yes, I do. I really don't like 4-4 overcalls after 1NT, and absent the occasional success that style doesn't seem to work for my opponents either. Well, a very chunky 4-4 in the majors might be ok, but it would really be the exception.

Not having a penalty double of a weak 1NT is terrible, absolutely unplayable. Getting doubled is THE greatest downside of the weak notrump, so you must be able to double. I have played weak notrump since approx. 1996, and I just love when opponents can't penalty double because of some silly convention.

Exactly. Opener just competes to 3♥, that's all there is to the preemptive meaning of 3♥. The ♥Q is a huge liability in this situation. 1. It might give us an extra defensive trick and thus make a competitive move wrong. 2. It means that partner on average will have a worse hand than without the queen. There are simply fewer hcp left for him. Forget all about the ♥Q helping us, if partner has a penalty pass. He doesn't :P. (I would not have doubled without the ♥Q. But with the ♥Q, it is a much easier pass).

Pass. No problem.

It makes no sense at all to bid like the actual north.

P clearly wants a non-H lead. It's a spade or a club. I'll try a spade. P might have bluffed 2♥ with ♠AKQxxx out hoping for this kind of scenario.

[hv=d=e&v=n&n=sj10xhj109xxdxxxxcx&w=sq7xxhqxxdaqj8cxx&e=sak9xhxxxd9ckj109x&s=s85hakdk1075caq832]399|300|Scoring: IMP[/hv] I was east, and we got +1100 after 2♣ - 2NT - DBL - 3♥, DBL My partner was afterwards very critical about south's 2NT. Usually, I'm very big on getting in to the auction on awkward hands - to get the job done. However, this particular south hand just cries for a pass, so I agreed with him. I would also have passed with south's cards. But since it's so easy to be influenced by the actual layout, I really wanted to hear more opinions on this - so thx all!

I'll go for my singleton. After all, I did preempt, so declarer is likely get the suit right anyway.

[hv=d=e&v=n&s=s85hakdk1075caq832]133|100|Scoring: IMP[/hv] East opens 2♣. This shows 11-15. 6+C or 5+C & 4M. What is your medicine?

I would expect 100% unanimity in MSC about the double of 1♠. 3♥ is a tad wild. But only a tad. 5♣ is totally out of bounds. If playing with screens, I would surely check if partner were still there or the cleaning lady had taken over. 100-0 to north.

Ehh, no?!

Well, I do ;) I'm not a greedy man, so RD would be SOS and request partner to choose a minor.

2♣. I'm not going to pass 1♠ with a nice suit and good potential for 3NT. No, it doesn't. :)

X of 1♥ showed exactly 4S (given standard agreements). So 4♠ cannot be natural but must agree clubs. He bypasses hearts, so he probably doesn't have a heart cuebid. I have a good hand, so I'm happy to accept partner's slam try. 6♣.

Don't agree. What we try to do is to go passive. Declarer has ducked the second club, and therefore it's quite unlikely that he really fears a heart shift (♥xxx). Let him do his work alone. The spade spot is not just a matter of partnership agreement. No partnership can afford to waste trick-taking spot cards, and playing the ♠9 does just that IMO.

We need much more information to make this choice.

No, I don't think this hand is good enough for a double. But it´s close obviously. The follow up problem: I much prefer to bid clubs. ♦Axx is bad for a 1NT response if we have a decent alternative. Close between 2♣ and 3♣, but I think I´ll settle for 2♣.

Well, you can never avoid ambiguity. If you lead low from xxx, it is hard to distinguish between xxx and Hxxx. That may cost on other deals.

Hmm, if 4NT then we might have a tainted meat situation, please be alert. Just kidding of course. I think double is clearly right. Hearts can easily be right if partner has 5. Rigid rules about what to promiss or deny by doubling is ridiculous. However, 4NT is much-much better than 3♦. When it goes all pass after 3♦, I'd start throwing up even before the dummy comes down.

I can't think of a situation where the 9 should be tecnical correct. It could make life easier for partner with Q87x or some such, but we can't afford to sacrifice serious trick potential for this. We must hope he gets it right. Picture declarer with AQ8. The nine... ugh!

Agree, but how do people exploit that lovely extra bidding room? My partnership uses this strategy: X = Take-out, could be rather light (lovely to be able to t/o double and still sell out to 3mi if that seems best). X + X = Take-out again. Extra values obviously. P + X = Penalty. X + bid = Forcing. Bid = Better than P + bid. --- In general we always use X of an artficial bid/raise in competition as "take-out of what they have shown". For instance: Namyats, Bergen raises, 1x - (1y) - pass - (2x) Dbl, etc. Very useful to be able to take-out double without actually having to enter the bidding in dangerous situations. Much better than the usual lead direction treatments, we think. Against Namyats, it works like this: X of 4mi is a shape take-out of 4Ma - could be aggressive because of the safety. X+X: Shape takeout with extras P+X: Balanced take-out (~ strong notrump type). I find this defense so strong that Namyats becomes almost unplayable.