BRIDGE MASTERCLASS

WHAT would you do next on each hand in the above auction?

The sole purpose of the support Double, now fashionable among serious tournament players, is to announce you have precisely 3-card support for partner’s bid major — after Rho intervenes. Using this method, you would be expected to double on hand (a), and a raise to 2 ♠ would then promise four spades.

a good acol player might well prefer a 2 ♠ rebid to 2 ♦ here if there had been no intervention. It’s a mystery why bridge boffins continue to tamper tirelessly with natural bidding methods, then advocate the use of their ideas, which have only limited appeal — and only to a very tiny minority of players. The presumed benefit of this ‘support Double’ is that partner will be able to judge better, whether to compete at the three-level (if he has only four spades) when east raises preemptively to 3 ♣ .

What happens when you hold hand (b) and hear the same auction? Presumably you want to punish West’s intervention with a penalty double, but you can’t — this will show three spades.

Instead you must let the opponents off the hook, either by bidding 2NT, or passing in the hope that partner will reopen with a competitive double — very unreal and unnecessary!