1st March – Board 20: Game All. Dealer West.
Doubling in the protective or ‘pass out’ position in bridge can be made on a variety of hands ranging in strength from about nine points upwards. If this may seem strange you just have to remember that partner, who has passed over the opening bid, may still have quite a lot of points but unable to contest. Maybe he has the wrong shape hand to double or nor quite enough points to bid 1NT or no five card suit in which to overcall. For this reason the hand in the protective position must move Heaven and Earth to breathe life back into the auction and ‘double’ is usually the most flexible.
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West
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North
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East
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South
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1H
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No
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No
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Dbl
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3H
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3S
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No
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4S
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End
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I could live with the above auction. South must not be afraid to double because he can always remove a club response to diamonds thereby showing that suit and spades. That could not be done if the double was second in hand of course because ignoring partner’s response in that situation shows a much stronger hand. Then you would already have shown an opening hand by the double, here you haven’t.
Those people who overcalled 1H with 1S will have got lucky, but they didn’t deserve to!
Andy and I sat this hand out but we went through our bidding and I did pass first time round, although in the post mortem he thought I should have bid.
ReplyDeleteWhen you say if N overcalled 1S they got lucky, do you mean because the quality of the spade suit is not good enough for an overcall?
ReplyDeleteYes, the suit is far too ropy to warrant an overcall. The last thing you want is for partner to lead a spade from Kx say against a no-trump contract when either minor might be more productive.
ReplyDelete