[jillybean]

For a bit of light relief, which bid gets your vote?

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[smerriman]

There might be an occasion once every 20 years where preempting, then preempting again, is right. I would rather still not do it even on that occasion just for the partnership's sake.

[LBengtsson]

Aha! But what was the result, jillybean? Did East lead the ♠10? It is only a bad bid if a bad result happens lol

(Still think 5♥ is a bad bid though)

[mikeh]

You live a sheltered life if any of the calls on this hand seem to you to qualify even for worst call of the day😀

That’s not saying I like all of them, just that I can understand all of them, perhaps with the exception of west’s final pass.

Ok, I vote that pass as the worst on the hand, but we’ve all seen a lot worse, assuming we play club bridge once in a while

[AL78]

I vote for pulling the double especially as 5♥ makes on a non-spade lead. Surprised West didn't double as they can see a likely three tricks if partner leads a singleton spade.

As MikeH says if you think any of these bids are as dreadful as the thread title implies, you should have a game with me at my local club.

[helene_t]

I agree with MikeH that this hand wasn't that bad. I have made several worse bids already this morning and I haven't even gone to the office yet.

That said, I voted for West's final pass. gwnn's law applies (5♥ is a retarded bid so you are allowed to double it for penalties).

The 5♥ bid is also quite undisciplined but I can understand it.

[thepossum]

I deleted my vote for West's final pass, simply because I had neglected to take note of vulnerability
It's a rather crazy auction and who knows where it went wrong

[DavidKok]

I am not a fan of 5♥, pulling partner's double. Partner has a better overview of the deal than we do, so we should not get in their way on the final call. There are other call that I don't love (the double and West's final pass). That being said mikeh summed it up well, while not great none of these calls are awful.

[jillybean]

Ok, can someone please explain when "I need to pull my partners penalty double because he will think I have a trick (or 2) here, and I don't have any defense" applies?

[DavidKok]

As a rule of thumb, never. Typically if partner expects defensive tricks and you don't have them that indicates a misbid on the previous round(s). On the example auction 4♥ promises no defensive tricks, and North's double should promise to take 5♦ off in their own hand. If South contributes a defensive trick that is very welcome but not required.

There are situations where you would still pull, i.e. when you made a very shapely light overcall, partner shows some support and then later doubles for penalties. That is really more of a two-way double. You are asked to sit with a normal overcall but run with a very shapely hand.

People use many different raises in competition exactly to solve these problems the round before they come up. There are different bids for point raises (promising significant defence), mixed raises (promising some defence) and preemptive raises (often containing effectively negative defence, since opener's long suit is now no longer worth a bunch of tricks). Between those you should almost never have to worry about not having sufficient defensive values to sit for a penalty double - partner already knows and doubled anyway.