aceS on bridge

“Double, double toil and trouble Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.”

-- William Shakespeare

Today’s deal from last year’s NEC trophy in Yokohama features the use (and abuse) of doubles. Let’s look at the unsuccessful story first, where West opened one diamond and North doubled for takeout. East bid one heart, South joined in with two clubs, and West now doubled to show a three-card heart raise -- the so-called support double.

Even if playing mandatory support doubles, this West hand surely fails to qualify since arguably it is neither an opening bid, nor does it have three-card support -- but maybe I’m old-fashioned. Two hearts went down on repeated spade leads, when the fourth spade promoted a trump for South.

By contrast, when Tony Nunn and Sartaj Hans were East-West, they constructed an auction, as shown here, to defend two clubs doubled. Put yourself in West’s shoes and pick a lead. Too easy, especially facing diamond shortage, right? No. Nunn led a small club, not his diamond sequence. Declarer won in hand and led a heart to the king, ducked by East, then played a diamond to West, who returned his second trump. A heart run around to the jack saw East play a third trump, won in dummy, and the ruffing finesse in hearts now set up the heart eight, but simultaneously ran declarer out of trump.

At this point, declarer naturally misguessed spades by leading to the spade king. Hans could win his ace, unblock the diamond jack, then cross to his partner’s spade queen. Three more diamond winners meant a penalty of 800 out of nothing.

ANSWER: Forcing to game with a call of three diamonds or a jump to four clubs seems an overbid, while raising to three clubs is a clear underbid -- though not absurd, given your lack of aces. All that is left is a double, which is card-showing, not penalties, in the hope that the next round of the auction will clarify for you what to do next.