What does a passed hand need to double 4[sp] ?

[pescetom]

MP

this board

 

I would have thought more than the description and it doesn't even have that.

Although I'm already worried about it's 20th century description of the initial double, come to that.

[TylerE]

Repeat after me. GIB does not make penalty doubles. GIB does not understand penalty doubles. GIB doubles are takeout through (and including) 7NT.

 

You violate this maxim at your peril.

[thepossum]

According to the card takeouts with GiB only go to game level :lol:

 

But as Tyler said

 

And it appears to be a rather ordinary takeout too 5Hx-5 - even at favourable isn't great

 

I am checking Bridge scoring for dummies - it only goes up to 4 down doubled - but for non dummies apparently they can keep adding 300 and it "gets pretty wild"

[smerriman]

Repeat after me. GIB does not make penalty doubles. GIB does not understand penalty doubles. GIB doubles are takeout through (and including) 7NT.

A worthwhile maxim in general, but you already know GIB can't possibly have a trump stack from the bidding. I'm not sure how you'd define penalty and takeout double in your human partnership here (does the distinction even exist?), but it's definitely not doubling under a specific expectation that you'd take it out; it will double with lots of other shapes (e.g the same shape with singleton in a side suit instead).

 

In the old database, GIB believes double here would show 24+ HCP and 14+ total points. Yep, 24+ HCP, because the rules tell it that it should double if the partnership holds a minimum 24 HCP and 26 total points between them, and South has shown 0 HCP in the description to date. >= 24 and >= 14 combined with its original pass of < 12 and < 13 combine contradictorily to give the final description.

 

In fact, in the old database, there are 0 rules which match in this situation - not even pass, but the book bid defaults to pass if nothing matches. But when simulating, it's allowed to choose between pass, double, and 5♣, and 5♣ wins by a country mile.

 

Something has changed since then; in particular, I believe that GIB has been programmed that if nothing matches, it's not allowed to pass out a contract if it knows the partnership has a minimum 24 total points combined fullstop, ignoring HCP. It thus doubles with this hand, and with KQx-void-Jxx-Kxxxxxx, but not with a total point less; but since this isn't a real rule, it still uses the old description which includes 24+ HCP when outputting the result, which is where the 11 HCP comes from.

 

For unknown reasons, this must also be preventing it from simulating and coming up with the 5♣ bid.

 

All a bit of a shambles really, but not the classic penalty vs takeout double issue at all.

[TylerE]

In my regular partnership this would be DSIP. Yes, this occasionally leads to silly numbers when they have a 12 or 13 card fit and don't really bid like it, but the good outnumber the bad at least 3:1.

 

That said, we play Precision and would never dream of not opening something on the N hand, so we don't need to strain to make 4th seat takeouts on crappy balanced 10s, because there's nothing to protect.