bluecalm, on 2014-March-02, 17:32, said:
No trump stack and they bid game voluntarily. Your double might be good vs very weak players it's awful at decent level.
You have your share of points after constructive overcall from partner. That suggest they have a lot of distribution and you are not scoring your kings too often. Tbh you are lucky there were no overtricks as N was minimum for 3D and had the flattest distribution possible. Additionally you score +3 if you are successful and minus 4, 8 or more if not.
I think doubling is a blunder.
Strongly disagreed. The auction is unconvincing and you have defense. Partner bid at the 2 level, dummy tried as hard as possible to sign off, and declarer went to game anyway; you have the hearts behind the heart bidder and you also have the king behind the spade cuebidder.
Yes, they might make it, but they're just as likely to go 2 off in my book. I recently doubled a voluntarily bid 2NT in a similar situation; yes, they might have made it, but I could tell the cards were probably badly placed based on the auction. Result: down 4, +800, 12 IMPs. Looking at the 2 hands in isolation, 2NT was a perfectly reasonable place to play.
The result was extremely unlucky. The AJ sixth of trumps in dummy is unlucky. If you'd led a club, partner not overtaking and returning a heart would have been unlucky.
If you don't allow the occasional contract that you double to make, you're absolutely not doubling enough. This is especially true if doubling them does not give them game. In my experience, if you set 70%+ of the contracts you double while rarely doubling them into game, your double shows a profit in the long run.
A little math here: your double costs -150 if they make, and gains either +100 or +300 if they go down. Even ignoring the +300, your double gains if they fail to make at least 60% of the time.
Another point: leading the singleton trump was a very bad idea. Singleton trumps are almost always a very bad idea. It probably didn't cost here, but partner will wonder why you led a single trump and not his suit. (Swap a small diamond from dummy with a small club from partner, and the opening lead very likely blew the defense.)
Final note: The idea that they are playing for overtricks is sheer lunacy in my book; the only way that's true is if partner psyched his overcall.