What’s your call?
| 4♥ | 4♠ | 4NT | ||
| 5♣ | 5♦ | 5♥ | 5♠ | 5NT |
| 6♣ | 6♦ | 6♥ | 6♠ | 6NT |
| 7♣ | 7♦ | 7♥ | 7♠ | 7NT |
| Pass | Dbl |
Cohen doubles, “unless ACBL has a new rule for 2015 which allows you to bid 3NT over the opponent’s four-level preempt … I have too much to settle for 50 a trick. I am content with anything partner does.”
Ditto Korbel: “Sure, we could pass or bid 4NT, but doubling gives partner a chance to pass with a weak balanced hand, which will be our only plus score.”
Ditto Stack, still paranoid and now a little ghoulish: “Must bid with this collection, whether it works out or not. We cannot pass and take a small profit when partner may bid a game that makes. He might even pass from fright, which we would love.”
Double by Meckstroth. “Way too much not to bid.”
Lee, too. “Just too much wood to pass.”
The Sutherlins say, “Partner is a favorite to have a five-card major, so game should have a reasonable chance.”
Boehm doubles. “I’m happy if partner passes or bids a five-card suit. If he bids a four-bagger, maybe it will be spades. Like problem No. 1, these highlevel doubles often get left in when advancer is balanced or semi-balanced.”
Ditto Rigal: “4NT natural is an option, but I think four of a major will play as well as 4NT if partner has a five-card suit. Let’s see:
♠x x x ♥Q J x x x ♦ x ♣K x x x
looks a lot better in 4♥. You might have three trump losers and still scramble quite a lot of tricks, whereas 4NT is not appealing.”
“Double is for takeout,” insists Falk, who passes. “If I were to double, I wouldn’t want partner to take it out, and as I encourage my partners to take out my takeout doubles, I won’t put partner in a position to make a losing choice. Also, I have way too much of my stuff in diamonds. Give partner something like:
♠Q x x ♥Q x x x x ♦ x ♣K x x x,
which is a pretty decent hand, and 4♥ rates to run into enough bad breaks (even if the spade finesse works) to fail by a trick. Yet partner will bid 4♥ every time. I toyed with 4NT natural, but I don’t have any tricks.”
“Another headache,” grumbles Lawrence, who passes. “Are all the hands this month this annoying? One problem with doubling is that if partner is 4–4 in the majors and elects to bid 4♥, we will be in the wrong major. I am hoping plus 100 or 150 is sufficient.”
Pass by Weinstein. “I will take my plus score. I don’t think making a takeout double will work often enough to warrant it here. I am also unhappy with my three low hearts, which is the suit partner is most likely to bid.”
“Going plus,” crows Colchamiro as he passes. “A lot of the time, my ♦ K will be a wasted card on offense. If I’m wrong, at least we’re nonvulnerable.”
Hampson, too, passes. “I think partner may have a hand that is a little too weak to overcall at the four level and we might have game, but more likely I am forcing partner to bid when he doesn’t really want to, and I’ll be converting a small plus to a large minus.”
Meyers wavers between pass and 4NT and finally signals surrender with the green card. “Ultimately, I decided to take the sure plus score.”
Many panelists dreamed, but only one dared: Sanborn bids 4NT. “Not loving it, for sure.”
