Wielding the Axe
Doubling for pleasure. Continue reading
One thing was indelibly impressed on me at the NABC in Philadelphia. My partner and I bid too aggressively, and we doubled too little. On two consecutive hands I had to write down 1100 and 800 in the wrong column. It was painful.
In Saturday’s club game my partner and I had twenty-one positive scores in twenty-seven hands. I imagined that that would have been good enough for first place, but although we were only 1.5 points behind the winners, we only tied for second out of ten. We had only doubled one contract that the opponents bid. I decided to look at the other hands on which the opponents got the bid to determine whether we missed any potential doubles.
| Hand # | Contract | Result | Comment | Double +/- |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17 | 2♠ | Made 3 | Anything that we tried would have been dangerous, although nobody whacked any of the three pairs sitting our way who stole the bid. Doubling for us would have been extremely stupid. | -2.5 |
| 18 | 1NT | Down 1 | My partner and I only had 18 points between us. | +2.5 |
| 19 | 4♦ | Down 1 | This was a fluke. One of the opponents had his hand sorted incorrectly. We should have gotten the bid for 3♠. | +2 |
| 20 | 3♠ | Down 2 | I was afraid that they would run to another suit. I should have doubled anyway. If they ran to hearts, it would have been worse. | +4.5 |
| 22 | 4♦ | Down 1 | +1 | |
| 24 | 4♥ | Made 4 | -1 | |
| 28 | 3NT | Down 1 | +2 | |
| 30 | 2NT | Made 3 | Doubling was not a consideration. | -4 |
| 1 | 3NT | Made 3 | -2.5 | |
| 3 | 4♣ | Down 1 | +1 | |
| 4 | 4♠ | Made 5 | Doubling would have been inane. | -4.5 |
| 5 | 3♠ | Down 1 | +.5 |
What an astounding result!
If we had doubled all twelve contracts that the opponents won — even the ones in which they clearly underbid — our results would not have changed. If we had doubled all except the three contracts on which the opponents made an overtrick, twelve matchpoints would have been added to our score. That would have netted us an improvement of over five percentage points and a comfortable victory.
This result was probably anomalous. I will try to check some other recent results.
Incidentally, my partner and I got the bid fourteen times, were never doubled, and made every contract except one. If our opponents had doubled us every time, we would have had a phenomenal score. On the other hand, if we had been doubled on the hand on which we were set, our absolute top would have turned into a bottom.