A double

[hanp]

What does this double mean?

 

1H - p - 1NT - 2H

Dbl

[JLOL]

What does this double mean?

 

1H - p - 1NT - 2H

Dbl

Penalty.

[aguahombre]

Since LHO is likely to be declarer, how about a run-of-the-mill opening bid which would just as soon partner led something other than a heart?

[gnasher]

The same as a double of a second-seat Michaels. That is, a good, fairly balanced, hand.

[jdonn]

Interesting you asked, I would have thought it showed good hearts. But I could easily believe penalty is more useful, although to me both meanings are clearly useful.

[whereagles]

I play it as showing BAD hearts... lol.

[hanp]

Playing this double as bad hearts is just terrible in my humble opinion.

 

There are two much more useful meanings for the double, one penalty oriented, the other shows good hearts.

 

Don't listen to JLOL, he's trying to mess up my thread. :)

[mtvesuvius]

Don't listen to JLOL, he's trying to mess up my thread.  :)

and his entire group of followers will now also post "Agree with Justin" and suddenly the most popular treatment will be "Penalty" :D

[miguelm]

Don't lead Hearts.

[whereagles]

Playing this double as bad hearts is just terrible in my humble opinion. There are two much more useful meanings for the double, one penalty oriented, the other shows good hearts.

Agree it's not optimal. I just gave it that meaning for mnemonic reasons.

[Codo]

Playing this double as bad hearts is just terrible in my humble opinion.

If this is a joke, where is the point to laugh?

 

What exactly is the difference of playing:

 

pass I have good hearts and X I have bad hearts to

pass I have bad hearts and X I have good hearts?

 

 

I play the first way, but why should this be so superior?

[jdonn]

Playing this double as bad hearts is just terrible in my humble opinion.

If this is a joke, where is the point to laugh?

 

What exactly is the difference of playing:

 

pass I have good hearts and X I have bad hearts to

pass I have bad hearts and X I have good hearts?

 

 

I play the first way, but why should this be so superior?

Double as good hearts really means 6+ good hearts, which is important since it allows partner to compete in hearts. So to play it shows bad hearts you are failing to differentiate good 5 card suits from good 6+ card suits and therefore making it impossible for partner to compete effectively. I suppose you could double as 6+ bad hearts or any 5 hearts, but I've never heard of anyone doing that.

 

That's aside from the fact that if you hold a minimum with bad hearts and your opponents are capable, it may go X P P back to rho and HIS good hearts...

[hanp]

There are auctions where it is useful to double to say that you have weak hearts, this is not one of them. I'm serious about this Codo, hopefully Josh's explanation is clear.

 

I agree with Nuno that having simple rules is important but I think that his rule for this situation is just too simplistic because this is not good

[gnasher]

I'm probably going to receive a tirade of abuse for this, but:

 

I suppose you could double as 6+ bad hearts or any 5 hearts, but I've never heard of anyone doing that.

When I invert the meanings of pass and double over a cue-bid, I do simply invert them, so in this instance I'd be doing exactly what you've never heard of (assuming that I'd otherwise be playing double as six good hearts).

 

That's aside from the fact that if you hold a minimum with bad hearts and your opponents are capable, it may go X P P back to rho and HIS good hearts...

RHO has made a Michaels cue bid, hasn't he? How many hearts do you think he's got?

[aguahombre]

Playing this double as bad hearts is just terrible in my humble opinion.

If this is a joke, where is the point to laugh?

 

What exactly is the difference of playing:

 

pass I have good hearts and X I have bad hearts to

pass I have bad hearts and X I have good hearts?

 

 

I play the first way, but why should this be so superior?

Double as good hearts really means 6+ good hearts, which is important since it allows partner to compete in hearts. So to play it shows bad hearts you are failing to differentiate good 5 card suits from good 6+ card suits and therefore making it impossible for partner to compete effectively. I suppose you could double as 6+ bad hearts or any 5 hearts, but I've never heard of anyone doing that.

 

That's aside from the fact that if you hold a minimum with bad hearts and your opponents are capable, it may go X P P back to rho and HIS good hearts...

Playing the hand in two hearts doubled by righty is not going to work out well for them, even if the bid was (barf) natural.

 

Showing a sixth heart by the double, with a law-abiding partner who had a NT response, will probably not be helpful.

 

The difference between double to strongly suggest leading something else, and double to show good hearts, is that decent hearts are the norm, and pass is the norm. the double adds a call to their repertoir (redouble), and should not be given to them unless the double is likely to be more useful to your side.

"Penalty" and 'Weak hearts" are closely related, actually. A double to show cards in the other suits seems useful.

[jdonn]

I'm probably going to receive a tirade of abuse for this, but:

 

I suppose you could double as 6+ bad hearts or any 5 hearts, but I've never heard of anyone doing that.

When I invert the meanings of pass and double over a cue-bid, I do simply invert them, so in this instance I'd be doing exactly what you've never heard of (assuming that I'd otherwise be playing double as six good hearts).

Ok, that's certainly a lot better than simply playing double is bad hearts.

 

That's aside from the fact that if you hold a minimum with bad hearts and your opponents are capable, it may go X P P back to rho and HIS good hearts...

RHO has made a Michaels cue bid, hasn't he? How many hearts do you think he's got?

I am willing to bet that you are smart enough and good enough at bridge to

- Realize what happened here,

and

- Deduce the intended bridge-related point.

I can't think of any reason you so enjoy being the resident typo and grammar nanny unless it's to annoy the hell out of me, which I actually could understand if it's the case since there are many people who it's funny to annoy and I may well be one of them. But it's quite far from ruining my day and so there won't be a tirade out of me, unless you consider this to be one.

[gnasher]

I am willing to bet that you are smart enough and good enough at bridge to

- Realize what happened here,

and

- Deduce the intended bridge-related point.

No, I don't know what point you were trying to make. Does it occur to you that sometimes when you make a typing error you will be misunderstood? Instead of interpreting every misunderstanding as a personal attack, you could just explain what it was you were trying to say. Then we could get back to talking about bridge instead of this rather tedious discussion of personalities.

 

I can't think of any reason you so enjoy being the resident typo and grammar nanny

Now I really have no idea what you're talking about. Which of my last (say) 500 posts intentionally related to a grammatical or typing error?

[jdonn]

I am willing to bet that you are smart enough and good enough at bridge to

- Realize what happened here,

and

- Deduce the intended bridge-related point.

No, I don't know what point you were trying to make.

That's pretty hard to believe. I said something about RHO being long in hearts, which is quite impossible on the auction. So let's all together try to deduce what was meant.

 

Does it occur to you that sometimes when you make a typing error you will be misunderstood?

Not really, since despite being a relatively careless typist I don't recall instances of receiving that complaint from anyone but you.

 

Instead of interpreting every misunderstanding as a personal attack, you could just explain what it was you were trying to say. Then we could get back to talking about bridge instead of this rather tedious discussion of personalities.

How should I interpret all those replies that end with snide little comments like 'maybe you should stick to bidding' or 'please do try harder to keep up'? Seriously, who do you think you are kidding?

 

I can't think of any reason you so enjoy being the resident typo and grammar nanny

Now I really have no idea what you're talking about. Which of my last (say) 500 posts intentionally related to a grammatical or typing error?

How many of your last 20 replies to posts by me would you say were of that type? How many of the last 5000 replies from all other posters combined to posts by me would you say were of that type? The first number is certainly larger than the second.

[awm]

Seems best to me to play double as showing extra values. This makes it a lot easier to penalize the opposition. The competitive difference between "six hearts" and "five hearts" is not that extreme, and hands with six good hearts can bid 3♥ here anyway, which I don't think shows as good a hand as a jump-rebid of 3♥ without competition (with that hand it's easy to double first or bid 2♠ first or something). Actually bidding 3♥ may carry some risk (what if LHO has all the other hearts) but it also can make it harder for opponents to determine whether they have a fit worthy of competing.

[cherdanno]

I'm probably going to receive a tirade of abuse for this, but:

 

I suppose you could double as 6+ bad hearts or any 5 hearts, but I've never heard of anyone doing that.

When I invert the meanings of pass and double over a cue-bid, I do simply invert them, so in this instance I'd be doing exactly what you've never heard of (assuming that I'd otherwise be playing double as six good hearts).

I doubt that is what the preceding posters meant, and I don't think your method is sound. It seems clearly better to make a pass more often than a double on these sort of auctions, as double gives opponents with good agreements various extra chances to exchange information. In fact I always thought the whole point of double-pass inversion in an auction such as

1S (X) 2S (P)

P (3C) P (3S)

?

is to double less frequently.

[gnasher]

[stuff]

I'm going to have one more go at trying to talk about bridge.

 

Did you intend to say that doubling 2♥ with poor hearts risks that LHO will pass, suggesting playing in 2♥, and RHO will pass it out? (If you didn't mean to say that, I really have misunderstood.)

 

I don't think this is a serious risk: almost nobody would play that pass as showing hearts; partner probably has two hearts, which reduces the chance that this will be a playable fit; and if I have bad hearts my high cards are likely to be usefully placed for defence over RHO's strength, so even if they do make five trump tricks they're unlikely to get many more.

[gnasher]

I doubt that is what the preceding posters meant, and I don't think your method is sound. It seems clearly better to make a pass more often than a double on these sort of auctions, as double gives opponents with good agreements various extra chances to exchange information. In fact I always thought the whole point of double-pass inversion in an auction such as

1S (X) 2S (P)

P (3C) P (3S)

?

is to double less frequently.

True, but it's also important to have a simple agreement. What's probably best is to invert pass and double when double would be lead-directing, but not when it would invite partner to bid. That, however, is a lot more error-prone.

[hanp]

What you just outlined seemed the natural way to play it to me so I don't think it is error prone.

[jdonn]

[stuff]

I'm going to have one more go at trying to talk about bridge.

 

Did you intend to say that doubling 2♥ with poor hearts risks that LHO will pass, suggesting playing in 2♥, and RHO will pass it out? (If you didn't mean to say that, I really have misunderstood.)

 

I don't think this is a serious risk: almost nobody would play that pass as showing hearts; partner probably has two hearts, which reduces the chance that this will be a playable fit; and if I have bad hearts my high cards are likely to be usefully placed for defence over RHO's strength, so even if they do make five trump tricks they're unlikely to get many more.

Yes that's more like what I meant to say. I disagree that almost nobody plays pass (or redouble) by LHO as showing hearts, in fact I would be shocked if a strong pair doesn't play one or the other. I agree it's not a likely occurence, I even mentioned it as a secondary consideration, but it would certainly be costly if it occured so I expect you would want to be gaining something to compensate for playing pass and double that way around. I don't think a memory aid is a good enough reason. I also feel the distinction about whether you are doubling for lead direction or competition is very important, which it now appears is what han was getting at.

[cherdanno]

I disagree that almost nobody plays pass (or redouble) by LHO as showing hearts, in fact I would be shocked if a strong pair doesn't play one or the other.

Let me shock you, then. I believe Frances plays pass as fit for clubs, and XX as fit for diamonds (or the other way round).