[kuhchung]

How will you ever know when to pull then? Maybe next time it goes off 2 and you're cold for your red slam. In your collective attempt to beat this contract doubled, you turned a plus into a minus (even without the 6H spite)

[phil_20686]

ArtK78, on 2012-August-08, 12:18, said:

Thank you all for the responses.

Do any of you worry that playing the double of 4♠ as not for penalty will encourage frivious preemptive actions on the part of your opponents at matchpoints? Even at IMPs bidding 4♠ on this auction will show a profit if you know that it is difficult for the opponents to penalize you.

I held the long heart hand in this auction, and I have to admit that the 6♥ bid really disgusted me. But I find that the inability to penalize your opponents in this auction is a problem. Had my partner passed over 4♠, I would have bid 5♥ and gotten a poor score (not as bad as 6Hx, but what is?). But suppose I had a lesser hand, such as:

x
Kxxxx
xxxx
Kxx

Should I act if 4♠ is passed back to me?

What matters is what the population does, not what you do. Players, esp in short rounds, do not cater their preempts to your particular system. The question is how best to respond to the population's average 4S bid, which is fairly solid.

Secondly, no two kings is not enough to act here, particularly without four clubs, as your most likely win here, given the club opening and the short spades, is to play in 5c. With an ace and a king, in teh pass out seat, and with partner opening the bidding, I would probably double for t/o. With a singleton spade the chance that partner will pass, but I want to have very good odds of beating it, and two kings is not quite enough. x Kxxxx Qxx Axxx for example would be a completely routine double after a pass. I would probably double without the Q, but I am pretty aggressive here, and do not open 1c very light.

[mikeh]

ArtK78, on 2012-August-08, 12:18, said:

Thank you all for the responses.

Do any of you worry that playing the double of 4♠ as not for penalty will encourage frivious preemptive actions on the part of your opponents at matchpoints? Even at IMPs bidding 4♠ on this auction will show a profit if you know that it is difficult for the opponents to penalize you.

I held the long heart hand in this auction, and I have to admit that the 6♥ bid really disgusted me. But I find that the inability to penalize your opponents in this auction is a problem. Had my partner passed over 4♠, I would have bid 5♥ and gotten a poor score (not as bad as 6Hx, but what is?). But suppose I had a lesser hand, such as:

x
Kxxxx
xxxx
Kxx

Should I act if 4♠ is passed back to me?

If you know that your opponents have "real" 4♠ calls when they make them, then it makes a lot of sense to play the direct double of 4♠ as something other than penalty. But if they know that you cannot penalize them, then you give them carte blanche to mess with all of your auctions.

Your point is valid but not necessarily persuasive.

I think most players these days play a wide-ranging style for 4♠. If they don't, then I suggest they should, precisely because such a strategy prevents the opps from adopting a strategy that assures them of maximal success. As it is, if your LHO held a sound preempt, you'd want opener's double to be 'cards' with transferable values, while if, as here, it was a weak bid, then you'd want a penalty double.

Given that with most opps you either have no idea of their style or you know their style to be wide-range, it comes down to your partnership's assessment of frequency of gain (at mps) in terms of what double should mean. I think the current consensus is that double should be 'cards', perhaps even leaning towards 'takeout'.

Btw, if you and your partner were known to play penalty, a opp could game you by tightening up his preempts, leaving you in trouble over his infrequent 4♠ calls, because you may now have no effective call. Conversely, as you point out, if double is known to be more take-out oriented, your opps will preempt ever more loosely. Such is the nature of the game, and I don't think it possible to eliminate this issue.

[lalldonn]

ArtK78, on 2012-August-08, 12:18, said:

Do any of you worry that playing the double of 4♠ as not for penalty will encourage frivious preemptive actions on the part of your opponents at matchpoints?

It's completely the opposite. If I know the opponents play an inferior system, such as penalty doubles of my preempts, I will force them to use that system such as by preempting more. How much will they lose every time a non-penalty double is the action they need available to reach their best contract?

[han]

How many mikeh's are posting in this thread? One would not have doubled, the other one thinks that east should double whether double is penalty or hand ownership (which is more common than takeout).

[shevek]

Assuming East's double of 4♠ is not penalty, I think the only way to defend is for East to open 1NT, as I would. So shoot me.
If East has to pass 4♠ & hope for a double from West, that won't happen.

[JLOGIC]

lalldonn, on 2012-August-08, 15:49, said:

It's completely the opposite. If I know the opponents play an inferior system, such as penalty doubles of my preempts, I will force them to use that system such as by preempting more. How much will they lose every time a non-penalty double is the action they need available to reach their best contract?

Dammit, was gonna post:

"Let's put it this way, if you played fishbein do you think I'd preempt more often or less often against you?" lol

[lalldonn]

JLOGIC, on 2012-August-11, 04:33, said:

Dammit, was gonna post:

"Let's put it this way, if you played fishbein do you think I'd preempt more often or less often against you?" lol

Lol I knew there was a funnier way to say it but I had writer's block or something.

[ArtK78]

There is a significant difference between 3-level preempts and 4-level preempts. So the Fishbein analogy really doesn't apply.

There is also a significant difference between a preempt of 4♥ and a preempt of 4♠. It was not that long ago that the prevailing philosophy is that a double of a 4♥ preempt was primarily for takeout, while a double of a 4♠ preempt is primarily for penalties. Quite frankly, that philosophy probably continues to exist in the majority of the bridge populace.

[Phil]

ArtK78, on 2012-August-11, 12:39, said:

It was not that long ago that the prevailing philosophy is that a double of a 4♥ preempt was primarily for takeout, while a double of a 4♠ preempt is primarily for penalties. Quite frankly, that philosophy probably continues to exist in the majority of the bridge populace.

Evolution is a slow process. Many of us do not care that much what the 'bridge populace' plays, and would rather focus on the issues created by playing optimal methods.

[JLOGIC]

ArtK78, on 2012-August-08, 12:18, said:

Do any of you worry that playing the double of 4♠ as not for penalty will encourage frivious preemptive actions on the part of your opponents at matchpoints? Even at IMPs bidding 4♠ on this auction will show a profit if you know that it is difficult for the opponents to penalize you.

I held the long heart hand in this auction, and I have to admit that the 6♥ bid really disgusted me. But I find that the inability to penalize your opponents in this auction is a problem. Had my partner passed over 4♠, I would have bid 5♥ and gotten a poor score (not as bad as 6Hx, but what is?). But suppose I had a lesser hand, such as:

x
Kxxxx
xxxx
Kxx

Should I act if 4♠ is passed back to me?

If you know that your opponents have "real" 4♠ calls when they make them, then it makes a lot of sense to play the direct double of 4♠ as something other than penalty. But if they know that you cannot penalize them, then you give them carte blanche to mess with all of your auctions.

So, let's get this straight. We are worried that the opps are now "messing" with our auction, and bidding 4S with presumably a non 4S bid. As a result, with AKxx A Jxxx ATxx opposite x Kxxxx xxxx Kxx, I end up defending 4S undoubled since I was not able to double. What a disaster, down 3 undoubled!

Oh no! At the other tables, they do not play such silly methods so clearly they preempted only 3S. Over that, maybe it went all pass if east was a disciplined player and got down 2. Or maybe east was undisciplined and bid 3N and went down.

Overall, it looks like we got a top.

You see, beating them multiple tricks when they are overpreempting because they feel like they won't get doubled is not a problem on hands where we don't have a game. Just because they go down a lot and you had them set in your hand doesn't mean that you had to double.

Often when you have a game even though you have spade values/length (which is not good for game purposes), partner will have values and short spades, and then yes, he will double back in and you'll get a good number. A few times you will be fixed. That is life. The mistake you are making is thinking you need to punish them when your partner has nothing, in that case they have punished themselves if they are really just bidding 4 to "mess with us"