How many times have you defeated the opponents 1,2,or 3 tricks and asked
yourself: "Why didn't I double this contract?" For the average player, a comfortable
penalty double means having enough quick tricks and / or trump tricks to defeat declarer
practically out of their own hand. The problem here is that with todays's more
sophisticated bidding methods and proliferation of tournaments, we will encounter more
experienced players who are not usually so far off in their bidding judgment as to be
defeated by sheer power. More often than not good players will fail in contracts not
because of which cards they are missing, but heard sayings such as "Do not double freely
bid contracts unless you know something that declarer doesn't." We must all learn to
recognize when the cards are lying poorly for declarer in order to take advantage and
create tops at pairs and pick-ups at imps.
The most important thing to consider when deciding whether or not to double is,
"What have we learned from the auction?"
Here is a common situation where an expert might make a speculative double based upon the auction:
You hold:
In this situation both opponents have limited hands. This is a very important point,
since you do not want to double contracts where one hand is unlimited in strength. A
speculative double is exactly what the name implies, you are speculating that along with
your trick taking capability, partner will have something to contribute to the defense. In
this case we hope he has 5 trumps and a 4 - 6 HCP. We can arrive at this by the fact that
if the opening bidder has 16 - 17 HCP and the responder has 8 - 9 HCP. By adding the 10
HCP we have, then partner must have 4 - 6 HCP. Obviously there will be some situations
where declarer is cold anyway, but I would guess I have a success ratio of about 4 to 1
on this type of hand.
Another classic situation is when the defenders have holdings in their RHO's suits.
In these situations the intermediate spot cards such as your nines and tens come to the fore.
A recent example:
What would you do if you were sitting behind declarer with:
Once again the opponents hands should be limited to something like 16 opposite 9
HCP. We have both of the declarer's suits and the auction tells us that partner rates to
have the other 2 suits behind dummy, along with 6 - 8 HCP. If you were able to find the
double, then you would be plus 500, as partner's hand was:
You will note that declarer had 25 HCP in the 2 hands but had to play well to
escape for down 2.
A final word of caution: Although these types of doubles can reap large reward,
they will often tip a savvy declarer to what is going on, so pick your spots and good luck
in your prospecting.
Tell him I sent you please
Here is one of my favorite articles by Grant Baze from 1985. I call it..
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