[Flame]

I had a little disaster which im sad to say happend to me before, id share so maybe others will learn.
Holding

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Playing imp
Partner open 1NT my first thought, i dont like this hand too much diffence, no where to get tricks.
and RHO bid a natural 2C.
We have a t.o double here so i use it and partner bid 2S, now RHO bid 3C.
This happend to me before, i am thinking we have 24-26 pnts, we may have a game or be close to a game, We dont have major fit so they arent suppose to have such a big fit either, how can i let him play 3c when our side might hold 26 hcp, and other tables might play 3nt and make it. i double and 9 easy tricks are taken, and i know i just did it again, and hope next time i wont.
All those Qs just dont work when someone contract is based on a long suit, this hand that seemed diffensive at first look doesnt have diffence when thier contract is based on long club suit. also thinking in terms of misfit when someone has a long good suit doesnt work. Also and this is what i keep forgetting, sometimes they just have the better points, they have less but their points are aces and kings and long suit and we are just balanced, and although we have more hcp, they have the better hand, and can make more tricks.

[inquiry]

Kelsey wrote a book a long, long time ago entitled "improve your bridge". In that book is a nice chapter on "over doubling". There is a hand at least somewhat similar to this one. Partner opened 1NT and next hand overcalled 2S.. the responder with three spades JTx and 10 hcp doubled on the same logic..."we have 26+ hcp, now we got them."... guess again. HCP don't necessarily win tricks.. as your example and several in kelsey;s book show.

Ben

[DrTodd13]

Part of the disaster is due to hand evaluation. First, who said that Milton Work count (A=4,K=3,Q=2,J=1) was the best? Milton says your hand is 10 points. I use BUM RAP counting and in that system your hand is worth less than 7. Also, you have to look at your RHO's bidding. He is very likely to have AK of clubs which devalues your club queen. So, I'd say your hand is really like a 5 or 6 point hand. Do you now feel that your 5 and opener's 15 are powerful enough to set 3C? And especially at IMPs, what benefit is there of an extra 50 or 100 when the contract goes down 1 versus the result when the close contract happens to make? My philosophy is, doubling is for down 2.

Todd

[HeartA]

I wouldn't dbl. I can't see a single sure defensive trick from my hand. I can't be sure that my pd could take 4 sure tricks either. As Todd said, to dbl 3C, you need 6 defensive tricks, that is 2 tricks per suit outside ♣. I wouldn't be that optimistic.

[helene_t]

The 4-3-2-1 point telling is very close to being optimal when it comes to 3NT decissions.

I made a logistic regression analysis of some 100.000 deals in which there was no major suit fit. The optimal coefficients of the honours turned out to be
4.2
3.0
1.8
1.0

The reason that the queen appears over-evaluated might be that my analysis was based on double-dummy analysis. In real life, declarer often has to guess how to capture the queen, which makes the queen more useful to the defendes. SO except for a possible slight under-valuation of aces, HCPs are fine for 3NT decisions. Of course, devaluationg 4333-shapes and sec honours and so on is probably an improvement. My statement is only that merely changing the coefficients will not work.

It is well known that HCPs are not optimal for trump contract decisions, but I'm not sure how far they are from being optimal. I haven't made any analysis on that issue yet.

[ArcLight]

Using the methodology from I Fought The Law of Total Tricks, I estimate the hands as follows:

Pard and I seem to have balanced hands, with a probable Club Doubleton in both hands, and probably 3 cards in any other short suit. This gives us a SHORT SUIT TOTAL of 5 (2 + 3)
Because of distribution the opponents probably have a short suit, lets say a singleton, and a doubleton for a SST of 3 (1 + 2). (I could be wrong and they may have 2 doubletons for a SST of 4)

The Q of Clubs is not a working card, because its likely the opps have long clubs, and the ♣AK, and will play the ♣AK and not finesse, thus dropping our Queen.
Assuming pard has 15 HCP we have 7 (no Credit for the Q) for 22 (even if pard has more, say 23 or 24, the adjustment is the same). If they have some other long suit, we may even have a bit less in terms of working points, as the queens may be under a king. Lets say we have 21 Working points (WP), maybe 22.

19-21 Working Points = no adjustment. 22-24 = +1 extra trick. 16-18 = -1 trick.

The opps have 16, + credit for the club Q, so they are around 18.


13 - 5 [our SST] = 8 expected tricks, 22 WP = 9 expected tricks, 19-21 WP = 8 expected tricks. So we should probably not compete to the 3 level unless we know what our trump suit will be.

13-3 [their SST] = 10 expected tricks for the opponents. 18 WP is less than 19-21, so the opps have a good shot at 9 tricks. Even with 16 WP the adjustment is still -1.

This is just a rough estimate of their hand, so I could be off a trick. However it seems that 3♣ is a realistic bid, that has a decent chance of making, and I would not double it. There is also a decent chance it will fail by a trick, but the benefit is +50, and the downside is substantial.

I would pass.

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Helene, your numbers are very close to those Marty Bergen sugegsts in Marty Sez #2.

Helene Bergen
A 4.2 4.5
K 3.0 3.0
Q 1.8 1.5
J 1.0 0.75

[han]

I don't mind the double as much as the other posters do. The first double was after all a take-out double, so clearly the second double still shows a take-out double (and denies 4 spades). I expect partner to pull with two clubs, and with more there is a good chance that we set 3C.

I still pass, the potential of this hand is in a suit is terrible, and I don't expect to set 3C more than one trick in any scenario.


b.t.w. I don't think that Helene's point count is close to Marty's at all! Helene's count is geared towards playing in notrump, while Marty's takes into acount that you might end up playing in a suit after opening 1NT. Also, I think Marty's count estimates the defensive potential better.