What is this double?

[dickiegera]

Do you remember the details well enough to say what the likely result would have been for 3CX? With his four clubs it appears the double was intended for penalties and his continuation to 3NT after your pull certainly confirms this. I don't know his hand, but it seems to me he is flying solo here.

 

The even split in diamonds, pleasant if unexpected, is useful both in playing 3D and in playing 3NT if the control is there. It is also useful in beating 3C since it means a trick in diamonds is available. Which is a way of saying that if we can beat 3C a trick because of the 2-2 diamonds then I do not want to be defending 3CX even at matchpoints, let alone at imps.

 

I am not all the great a fan of LOTT, but it sometimes is useful in the post mortem when the details are known. We have nine diamonds, they have nine clubs. If 4D is making then 3CX is off one, or so LOTT predicts. Too close for my taste, especially since double dummy analysis, usually used when LOTT is applied, is often at odds with the table result.

 

I asked a partner last night what he thought the double was, and he said penalties if undiscussed. Ok, maybe so. If it is so, then I think the X should rarely require a pull. Luck was going your way with the pull, you have a nine card diamond fit and the diamonds split. But I think the penalty doubler has to assume that there usually will be no place to run or hide, and so he should only double if he is sure. I find it hard to imagine his certainty on a four card club holding unless the 3C bidder is a known madman.

 

West said that 3♣ would have been down 1 I am not sure that was true.

Never looked at hands after play to really see.

Thank you for your input

[helene_t]

It might be penalty (t/o is a better agreement but ...), but with your hand I would take it out anyway. Partner should pass, then.

 

FWIW I think using Stayman on this and is reasonable.

[mycroft]

I would have taken the double as penalty - and would assume with a "real" Stayman hand you'd pass. However, my rule #small (1, perhaps, in the general case) is "when you open 1NT, partner is captain." You've described your hand to within a point and within a card or two; partner's hand is, even after her first bid, much more fluid. That means that - at best - the double is a suggestion.

 

It is hard to think of a hand where a 15-17 hand can unilaterally know that we're taking 5 tricks - okay, ♣AKQT and an A I guess - and it looks like I have at best half a trick for him. We've just doubled them into game at IMPs; we're laying 6-1 odds that this is right (plus the bonus that, if it does go down, they're going to be much quieter the rest of the match. However, the converse applies if it makes!) I pull.

 

I think that 3NT is optimistic, given the auction. If partner *trusts me* to not pull to a non-forcing bid without a non-forcing hand (I can bid 3NT myself, or 4♣ "no, really, partner, pick a suit"), then all of his club stoppers don't develop tricks, and my hand doesn't develop tricks, and misfits do not play well in NT. Of course, if he expects the kind of 7-count 4-4-4-1 because Garbage Stayman doesn't exist, then I can see it - but why would that hand run from 3♣X?

 

My guess is that partner "knows" that you've just traded +300 or +500 for +110, and now he has to "get his plus back". I hate when I do that (and I do it less and less as I play), because partner usually has a very good reason to make that trade, and that frequently is that the "+300" is actually -470, maybe even -570.