Hi Mr. Wolff,

Fine play by Peter but the hand almost makes me pine for penalty doubles of 3 of a major. Double dummy, try a club to the Ace, a trump back and, even if declarer runs it to the 9, south wins and the defence cash their winners ending in the North hand. The 13th diamond then looks horribly like 1100 with a trump promotion – ouch!

Regards,

Iain Climie

Hi all, the cheap seats speak!! As South, I would take a long look at converting the double: I do not like any bid and am confident that we can take 6 tricks minimum and not confident that we have a game. My Ax in spades makes me nervous as partner may have only 5, they will not split favorably, and NT seems equally fraught with peril. Does this make any bridge sense??

Hi Bruce,

Sorry, I was going back to the caveman approach I played 30 yrs ago where dbl of an opening 3H or 3S by the next hand was penalties although doubiing a minor suit pre-empt was take out. After 3 of a suit – Pass – Pass – Dbl, of course, this was still takeout and I’d convert to pens as South if I’d passed initially although here North bid 3S.

I agree with your general thoughts but was suggesting I might have hit the opening bid with a penalty double (if available) as South immediately; I always was trigger happy. Maybe it as well that I have to play takeout doubles, although the odd -730 at pairs is just too bad.

Regards,

Iain Climie

Hi all,

Reporting real life hands, especially focusing on the high-level game, tends to show wide ranges of judgment. Penalty doubles of 3 level preempts (usually called Fishbein, named after a great bridge player and personality, Harry Fishbein from NY became unpopular about 70 years ago (1950), but sometimes we have all wished we were still playing it. In those long bygone years, preempts had become very weak, but when Fishbein was invented, preempts became at least slightly beefed up to combat that convention.

To each his own probably applies to bridge more than most competitions, but in any event it is fun to talk about.