[jim420]

Scoring: IMP

W N E S
- - - 4♥
P P 4♠ 5♥
X XX ?

---

White vs white imps. South deals and opens 4♥. You overcall 4♠ and he goes up to 5♥ which partner doubles. RHO redoubles and it's now your turn. Do you run?

[P_Marlowe]

why should I run?

With kind regards
Marlowe

[FrancesHinden]

Why should I run?

[Gerben42]

Is it my lead? No? No problem then.

[skjaeran]

This auction doesn't exist!
(If opener thought his/her hand qualified for another bid, it should be double.)
Partner made a penalty double. I've got no certainty of making anything higher. I'll relax and await partner's lead.

[DWM]

How happy am I that it looks like I will be able to provide at least 2 defensive tricks on an average day and Partner can penalise.

I am even happier when I realise that it is not one of my pen doubles

OK sods law states that they have a massive round top double fit and we have just a big pointy double fit, but for once its not me who made the bad pen double. Plus if P wants to run he still has time

[whereagles]

Pard has points, not hearts. I'm pulling to 5♠. Slam can definitely make, though.

[ArtK78]

I voted too quickly. At first, it seemed to me that passing was clear. But it is not clear.

I bid 5S to make. On this auction, my spades could be much worse and only 5 cards (opponents' 4H openings are a transfer to 4S by my side). Partner has values. The redouble makes no sense, so I am ignoring it.

We could be beating 5H, but we are almost certainly making 5S (perhaps 6S). A pass of 5Hxx could make for a good story - how did I manage to go -1000 when I was cold for +450?

The other day, I went -650 (nonvulnerable) at IMPs when an opponent turned out to be 6-7 in the red suits. The auction, with neither side vul, was 1C by partner, 1H on my right, 1S by me holding

Qxxxx xxx AKx xx

P on my left, 4S by partner, 5H on my right. Unsuspecting fool that I am, I doubled this. My partner, holding AJxx x x AKQJxxx thought for a long time before passing. I have a lot of sympathy for his pass. My RHO held

--- AKT9xx QJTxxxx ---

Interesting choices of calls on his part.

[P_Marlowe]

ArtK78, on Jul 6 2007, 03:09 PM, said:

<snip>
We could be beating 5H, but we are almost certainly making 5S (perhaps 6S).  A pass of 5Hxx could make for a good story - how did I manage to go -1000 when I was cold for +450?
<snip>

or a boring one, how did I manage to go minus (-50),
after they presented me the option to go plus (+600).

Unless your partner is a lunatic, you will beat it,
he just needs one trick, I have at least two,
i.e. -1 XX is 200, and it gets better each additional
trick we get.

With kind regards
Marlowe

[the hog]

Pass. Agree with Skaeran.

[Cascade]

skaeran, on Jul 7 2007, 12:54 AM, said:

This auction doesn't exist!
(If opener thought his/her hand qualified for another bid, it should be double.)
Partner made a penalty double. I've got no certainty of making anything higher. I'll relax and await partner's lead.

I disagree.

Actually I disagree very strongly.

For one we have the auction here in this thread and presumably it occurred at a table somewhere.

Secondly there is a whole class of hands that are more distributional than an average 4♥ opener where it might be right to open 4♥ hoping to play there and then right to act again that are not suitable for a double e.g. hands with 9 and 10 card suits etc.

Thirdly given that opener freely bid 5♥ and assuming that he is not insane (although I admit this is yet to be proven) I am not convinced that double should be unilaterally penalties. I think it should be I have something over here that is likely to be useful. If the 4♠ bidder has a normal or unspectacular hand for 4♠ then he should pass automatically however with extra distribution (and perhaps with extra strength) he should consider some other action.

Fourthly the range for a 4♠ bid here is quite wide both in terms of high card strength and distribution. Distributionally perhaps it could be as bland as a 5=3=3=2 hand up to something like the hand shown or even more distributional say 7=0=4=2 and beyond.

Fifthly I have extra strength here.

I would expect that 5♠ would be cold and 6♠ and even 7♠ are possible. Maybe even 6♦ or 7♦ is best.

I would bid a middle of the road 6♠ but there is a case for a cue-bid or some other action but we probably don't know what these mean and I am not in favour of giving partner horrible guesses like that.

[jim420]

Here comes the full hand

Scoring: IMP

---

I actually passed, and the contract was 5♥xx, a ♠5 lead results in ♠8 (low from dummy), ♥A, ♦Q, ♣A taking 4 tricks, down 2.

N's redouble was just plain riduiculous. Judging from this, he might have redoubled every time someone doubled him.

Without the XX, the sacrifice would result in a bottom score for us. However, 6♠ was cold, and therefore pushed 4♠ or 5♠ to a slight -ve score...

[jtfanclub]

jim420, on Jul 7 2007, 06:11 AM, said:

N's redouble was just plain riduiculous. Judging from this, he might have redoubled every time someone doubled him.

Huh. A stripe tailed ape redouble? Was he that afraid of you guys now bidding 6?

[han]

South's 5H was also way off.

I would have bid 6S, agree with all that Cascade said.

[ArtK78]

Are you serious? Balance with 5S? Now that will be an interesting result when you go down one.

Sure, the hand is strong, and the range for a balance of 4S is very wide. But life is tough over preempts (that's why they bid 'em up). This is a very (VERY) good 4S balance, but taking any stronger action is very dangerous.

[cherdano]

Cascade, on Jul 6 2007, 05:50 PM, said:

skaeran, on Jul 7 2007, 12:54 AM, said:

This auction doesn't exist!
(If opener thought his/her hand qualified for another bid, it should be double.)
Partner made a penalty double. I've got no certainty of making anything higher. I'll relax and await partner's lead.

I disagree.

Actually I disagree very strongly.

For one we have the auction here in this thread and presumably it occurred at a table somewhere.

Secondly there is a whole class of hands that are more distributional than an average 4♥ opener where it might be right to open 4♥ hoping to play there and then right to act again that are not suitable for a double e.g. hands with 9 and 10 card suits etc.

Thirdly given that opener freely bid 5♥ and assuming that he is not insane (although I admit this is yet to be proven) I am not convinced that double should be unilaterally penalties. I think it should be I have something over here that is likely to be useful. If the 4♠ bidder has a normal or unspectacular hand for 4♠ then he should pass automatically however with extra distribution (and perhaps with extra strength) he should consider some other action.

Fourthly the range for a 4♠ bid here is quite wide both in terms of high card strength and distribution. Distributionally perhaps it could be as bland as a 5=3=3=2 hand up to something like the hand shown or even more distributional say 7=0=4=2 and beyond.

Fifthly I have extra strength here.

I would expect that 5♠ would be cold and 6♠ and even 7♠ are possible. Maybe even 6♦ or 7♦ is best.

I would bid a middle of the road 6♠ but there is a case for a cue-bid or some other action but we probably don't know what these mean and I am not in favour of giving partner horrible guesses like that.

This all makes sense if you know that opponents are good. Given this is a random post on BBF saying nothing about opponents' skills it is a lot more likely that South doesn't have his 5H bid, and North doesn't have his redouble. (In real life, partner didn't have his double either.)

I might have bid 6S over 5HX, but passing 5HXX is too much fun. (And I would have bid 5S over 4H.)

[helene_t]

4♥ is acceptable, I think I would just have bid 3 though. P's initial pass is the only clearly good bid in this auction. RHO's pass is accetable, I would try 5♥ I think. Your 4♠ is the best bid although I would prefer somehow to show a really strong hand if it were possible. Opener's 5♥ is madness. P's dbl is an overstatement, though not terrible. RHO's rdbl earns a place on my enemies' list. This is not even a beginner's mistake or a silly psyche, it's just plain nonsense.

Now for your final pass. Against random opps I would do the same. I have sympathy for Wayne's reasoning, he may very well be right if LHO was a good player.