[dickiegera]

NOW WHAT IS BEST?

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This is what happened at our table

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Comments

[kuhchung]

1S

[the_clown]

West should start with 1♠ and then bid ♥s.

[the hog]

Why x? Start with 1S.

[Vampyr]

I find the double a truly bizarre choice.

The auction does not make any sense to me. Responder did not have sufficient strength or shape to bid 1♠ but now bids 3♠? Maybe responder had a good hand with 4/4 in the majors and is now showing where his values are concentrated in an attempt to get to 3NT?

The only explanation that is at all credible is that the pair are playing Negative Free Bids, and responder thinks they apply at the one-level.

[Vampyr]

I will be very happy when I manage to post a message without posting a duplicate.
Delete please.

[SteveMoe]

Easy 1♠. Double here shows exactly 4=4 Majors. Will give partner choice of Major games.

[johnu]

How many times has West played the game?

[Zelandakh]

Double might show precisely 4-4 in the majors for some but that is by no means universal. Indeed I find it quite wasteful to devote the most efficient call to such a restrctive set of hands. Presumably 3♠ just does not exist in this auction for those playing that style. An alternative is to play the double as showing not more than 1 card difference between the 2 suits. That said, you also have to decide what bidding spades followed by hearts means. Is that now 6-4 or a specific range of 5-5? Regardless, it seems clear that 3♠ over 3♦ is wrong. 4♦ is better. Even then, West would have gotten away with this if East had considered 3♠ forcing - obviously West thought it was forcing - so the implied ATB part of this comes down more to a lack of agreements than comments like "How many times has West played the game?"

So to answer the OP question we should first find out what the actual agreements were. Both 1♠ and X are possible and I do not consider either better without knowing more about the follow-ups. If, as I suspect, there were actually no agreements in place then I would prefer 1♠ for the simple reason that it puts the partnership on somewhat firmer footing than after a double. What is bad whichever way you begin is following up with a non-forcing call at the next turn. If we are going to call anything bizarre then surely it is this.

[helene_t]

Normally a negative double followed by a new suit shows a weak hand but with longer spades than hearts it is more practical to bid spades first and then hearts. It would be logical for me (not suggesting that it is standard) that dbl can be strong with 5♠4♥ or weak with 4♠5♥. Of course it is also playable to let this 3♠ bid be weak with 6♠4♥, which is probably what East assumed.

Absent prior discussion about these issues, West should just have bid 1♠ and then 4♥ at his next turn (or some smaller number of hearts as long as it is clear that it is forcing).

[Vampyr]

helene_t, on 2014-January-29, 09:37, said:

Normally a negative double followed by a new suit shows a weak hand

At the one-level, though? I have never played that a negative double followed by a new suit as showing (potentially) insufficient values to respond at the one-level, and I don't think that doing so is at all popular. I have never heard of it.

[helene_t]

Vampyr, on 2014-January-29, 10:00, said:

At the one-level, though? I have never played that a negative double followed by a new suit as showing (potentially) insufficient values to respond at the one-level, and I don't think that doing so is at all popular. I have never heard of it.

No, but it makes sense to play that dbl followed by 2♥ shows 4♠5♥ and insufficient values for 1♥ followed by 2♠.

[aguahombre]

helene_t, on 2014-January-29, 09:37, said:

Absent prior discussion about these issues, West should just have bid 1♠ and then 4♥ at his next turn (or some smaller number of hearts as long as it is clear that it is forcing).

That would have been our choice. I would have assumed that whatever an advanced + pair agreed about a double of a 1♦ overcall, it would not include 5+5+.

FWIW, we have added 4-5 with below invitiational strength to our previously stodgy 4-4...and might be dragged kicking and screaming to 5-4 with minimum responding strength.

[Zelandakh]

Vampyr, on 2014-January-29, 10:00, said:

At the one-level, though? I have never played that a negative double followed by a new suit as showing (potentially) insufficient values to respond at the one-level, and I don't think that doing so is at all popular. I have never heard of it.

I did not get the insufficient vaues inference at all. If we had 4♠6♥ and a weak hand, then the auction without interference might go 1♣ - 1♥; 2♣ - 2♥. What I got from this idea was that 1♣ - (1♦) - X; 2♣ - 2♥ could be used in the same way. I am really not sure what this 2♥ bid is supposed to even mean in a style in which double promises precisely 4-4 majors. The idea of using X followed by 2♥ in this sequence differently to double followed by 2♠ is actually a new one on me and interesting. I will have to have a think about whether that gains some efficiencies some time or is simply a transposition.

Alternatively, you can do what I mentioned (X shows no more than 1 card difference) and then you respond in the major as usual with this weak 6-4 and then double followed by bidding a major is constructive with 5-4. The point is that you can arrange the hands much more efficiently when the double stops being restricted to exactly 4-4.

But the logical follow-up to all of this is really that double showing both majors is probably a poor convention generally and we should all just use our Transfer Walsh structures here with double showing 4+ hearts.