Direct Seat Offshape Takeout Doubles

[pbleighton]

How do you feel about them?

 

What effect do scoring, partner being a passed/unpassed hand, and vulnerability have?

 

Would you give some examples of hands which you would just barely double with, and what you'd take away to make them passes?

 

Peter

[mike777]

I have been trying them with 14+ hcp and like the results so far, any vul. Many others just pass with these hand types.

[the hog]

If you are going to play these, Peter, you should probably use them with some form of Herbert Negative, similar to the structure played by Bocchi - Duboin. I remain unconvinced that they can be played effectively without this. eg Mike posted a hand in a different thread where he X rather than overcalling 1NT or better still passing. On that hand he had a xx S and when partner responds 1S his action would have been to pass. Iow he was screwed.

[Guest Jlall]

I will do them with 4225 and 4 of the other major, and 2 of a minor. I will also do it with 4432 and 3 of the minor and both 4 card majors. I will also do it with 4333. Those are the only hand types with minimum high cards which I will do it with.

[jtfanclub]

I can't stand them...I don't want my partner to X unless he has at least either 4-4 in the unbid majors or a singleton in their suit, and never 4333. Exception made for the 'power' double, whatever level it's defined as. I hate auctions like:

 

(1♦)-X-(3♦)-3♠ with 5 spades and 3 diamonds, and discovering the total tricks is 14 instead of 18 once partner's hand comes down. As far as the majors are concerned, partner should be able to count total tricks as if I had 4441 and be off my no more than one. Minors, I don't care as much about.

 

Vulnerability and passed/unpassed partner only matter to me for hcp, not for shape.

 

Making 1NT in the direct seat 12-15 is an extreme fix, but I still think it's worth it to give the X an actual meaning, other than 11+. Actually having people pass those hands would be an improvement over both, but I don't seem to be able to do that.

[temp3600]

I really dislike being doubleton in one of the suits I promise.

I don't mind having xxx, Jxx or even xxxx (with a nice-looking 4-3-3-3) in the suit I'm doubling.

 

Vulnerability and partner being a passed hand or not don't affect my take on this.

I might be a little more loose with having a doubleton at matchpoints, but still don't like it.

[mike777]

How do you feel about them?

 

What effect do scoring, partner being a passed/unpassed hand, and vulnerability have?

 

Would you give some examples of hands which you would just barely double with, and what you'd take away to make them passes?

 

Peter

Based on these posts I guess I would consider some of these doubles as not offshape. :)

 

Ron discussed an example of one of my offshaped doubles. :) In his words and others my bid sucked!

[the hog]

"Ron discussed an example of one of my offshaped doubles. In his words and others my bid sucked! "

 

No Mike, I didn't say that. :) I would never say someone's bid "sucked".

What I said was that you could end up in a very poor contract if your pd bid S.

If you note what Justin says above, the risk of this happening in a minor suit is far less likely than in a M suit. So for example, you might X 1C with

xxxx xxxx xx xxx because pd will strive to bid a M, (sometimes even a 3 card suit), but you would not double 1C on xx xxxx xxxx xxx because a bid of 1S will cause you a problem. In the very worst case you might even find yourself playing in a 3-2 fit!

 

This was why I suggested to Peter that if someone plays this style, and some pairs certainly do, it is sensible to link it with a Herbert negative. Then you can X 1D on

xxxx xx xxx xxxx Now if pd bids 1H negative, you can bid 1S and not necessarily promise extra values.

 

Caveat - of course I am talking about limited Xs here, not the sort of rockcrusher on which you can handle an awkward response.

[mike777]

"Pass, no source of tricks. X is sick. "

 

 

I stand corrected you said sick :)

[mike777]

In any event these experts know more but I am just trying to get in with my 14 hcp hands and not get robbed. Sure it is a risk to not pass.

[the hog]

"Pass, no source of tricks. X is sick. "

 

 

I stand corrected you said sick :)

Sick - to be sick, to be unwell, to be in a state of ill health.

Suck to....well, you know!

[pbleighton]

I don't care for offshape doubles myself, I was curious as to others' thoughts.

 

I do like overcalls at the one level with 4 card suits (not necessarily good ones either). They let you bid on a lot of hands without exciting partner.

 

Peter

[Finch]

I'm not sure what you mean by "offshape". Like Justin, I will double 1M with a 5422 with a 5-card minor and 4 cards in the other major; though vulnerable I will usually have a little extra (say a 14-count or so) in the way of high cards. I have a partner who has been known to double 1H with a 3163 with weak diamonds and good spades.

 

Hand I consider "offshape" are ones without shortage in opener's suit and/or with shortage in an unbid major. I need a lot extra before I'm prepared to double with a 4333 (I would double 1H holding AKxx xxx KQx QJx but that's about my minimum).

 

As responder to a take-out double, I am always going to bid on the assumption that partner has shortage in their suit, and that he has 3-card support for the other major.

 

I am, at least partly, open-minded about whether the "double-on-any-opening-bid" approach can work, but if I decided to play that I would have to change my whole approach to competitive bidding, and I think it would require a lot of work with my partner: e.g. 1C x P 1S P 1NT might be better played as "off-shape double" rather than "18-20 balanced"; jumps to the 2-level will have to promise a 5+ card suit, so I might prefer to play advancer's cue-bid as a 1-round force only, not promising another bid.

[inquiry]

There are a lot of threads the last few days that tie together in an odd sort of way.

 

Do you reverse on 1444 hands (see the very nice post by MikeH that I pinned to the top of the Beginner/intermediate forum because I thought it was important enough to highlight and keep it always current).

 

What do you rebid with the Bridgeworld hand of death

 

The post by Flame (I think) saying he would never open 2♣ with a two suiter (that two suiter was 4-6).

 

Questions on whether a jump shift can be made in three card suit just to establish a force

 

This one on off-shape doubles

 

Post discussing bid the longest suit first when two suited (also discussed in mikeh pinned post).

 

I think one can divide the arguements into two very large camps. Some go with stregnth first, some go with shape first. I am a shape first kind of guy. I open my longer suits. I make takeout doubles that are shape specific. I use "raptor" for hands that are 4 in other major and longer in a minor. I always have FIVE CARDS in a second suit that I jump into. I will not have TWO five plus card suits when I open 2♣ because I then use my misiry instead. I will not reverse on 1444 hands no matter how strong (BTW, I open these hands 2♣ and have special methods to use on them, so this isn't an issue), so when I reverse I have longer first suit, and four cards in the second suit.

 

The one exception is when I have a hand that is so strong that I can not afford to make a simple overcall. I am not talking about 16, or 17, or 18 hcp. I am talking about monster hands with lots of tricks. I will, begrundingly double, and then bid my own suit. I am not playing equal level conversion, this auction shows a monster hand for me.

 

Playing this style results in other system changes, of course. My raptor can be much stronger than normal raptor so I have to alter the overcallers subsequent auction to get the stregth across. Since I will not jump shift in short suits, I have to add ritong 2♣ along with a funky version of Cole (new minor forcing by opener) to handle some different hand types. But so far, I feel like I am on much firmer ground. This doesn't mean the solutions I use will work for others, or that a stregnth first approach is wrong. A lot of people double with "strong" hands and off shape and then still manage to bid fine after that. It is just for me, the shape first appoach makes more sense and I can handle the subsequent auction better in my mind, and most importantly, at the table.

[Fluffy]

I only double offshape with 4333, but I am sure they work, because everytime an old lady doubles offshape against me, and I become declarer, I end with less tricks than the others.