A herietical question about vulnerabileties.

[OleBerg]

(1♥) - X - (2♥) - pass

(pass) - ???

 

MP's

 

You hold (specific) 4-1-4-4, and a hand you consider borderline for another double.

 

Your opponents are competent, so any fear of driving them to game could virtually be neglected.

 

Now, when would you be more inclined to double:

 

A) When all are red?

 

B) When you are red, and they are white?

 

 

Remember, matchpoints only.

 

The auto-answer is A), but maybe it should be B)

 

 

I imagine three scenarioes:

 

1) We both have a contract. Their vulnerabilety doesn't matter.

2) We are down, they make. Their vulnerabilety doesn't matter.

3) They are down, we make. Their vulnerabilety matters. It is better for us, when they are red.

 

So we should be less inclined to compete, when we can collect better penalties against their contract. +200 is fine of course, but even +100 can salvage points vs some 90'ies, if they have "stolen" our 2 of a minor.

 

 

There are points against this too.

 

- The possibilety of collecting +200, if partner sits for the double, when they are vulnerable. Wouldn't expect that to be frequent.

- The opponents might bid three over three, in which case competing pays off better, when they are vulnerable. Would properbly have some frequence.

 

 

Comments?

[gnasher]

This isn't very heretical.

[han]

The auto answer is B, but maybe in some cases the answer should be A.

[gszes]

the history of bridge is filled with bad MP scores for

pairs that let opps play 1M 2M and out. You have ideal

distribution for another x so go for it and there is

no reason to take the vul into consideration.

 

It is a game of % this wont always work but in MP there

is a good chance of improving your score from your

predestined poor if you pass.

[OleBerg]

With enemies like this, who needs friends. :)

[MrAce]

"I can't stand it, Please balance--I'd rather you go minus 1100 than minus 110!, dont let your opps play their 8 card major at 2 level" Larry Cohen

 

http://www.bridgewinners.com/index.php/larry-cohen/952-i-cant-stand-it

[dake50]

Gotta reopen.

Doesn't partner expect he can pass for fear

of overheating eg. if he bid 2S over 2H?

Now expecting some fight from you, 2S is played.

[Zelandakh]

I have learned that the time to be most aggressive in these spots at MP is w/w and the time to be least aggressive is r/r.

[OleBerg]

...the time to be most aggressive in these spots at MP is w/w...

 

WOW

[awm]

There's a sort of funny reason to compete more when they are white.

 

Any time I double when the opponents are red at MP, partner will be tempted to leave it in. This makes it somewhat dangerous to double in with very minimum defense (i.e. "just on shape"). If opponents are white, partner will almost never leave a two level double like this in -- basically the deal is that if partner thinks beating them is 60/40 and we can probably make 3m, he may well leave my double in with opponents red (where it's 60% top and 40% bottom) but he won't when they are white (as +100 is worse than the likely +110 and -470 is still bottom).