Happy Father's Day!

Thin doubles are probably the thing I love most in bridge.  Some people like thin slams.  Some people like psyching (Jeff couldn't go through a session without psyching when we played regularly 10 years ago.)  Some people like playing Moyses or exotic squeezes.  I'm not saying those other things aren't fun too, but to me they don't quite compare to dropping the hammer and beating a thin contract a trick, or causing declarer to misplay, or best of all, causing him to run from a cold contract to an unmakeable contract.

Not all thin doubles are caused by hyperaggression, though.  Sometimes your partner makes a takeout double and you come to the conclusion that even though passing is probably wrong, guessing what to bid is even more likely to be wrong, so you sit and hope for the best.  Here's a hand like that from my set with Scooter on Tuesday.

I picked up in 3rd at favorable:

9863 / Q84 / AQJ6 / T4

Scooter opened 1 Club, I chose a slightly unorthodox 1NT due to my lousy Spade suit and Lefty came in with 2 Diamonds.  Scooter smashed this (we had no explicit agreement, but he can't really have a penalty double with my Diamond holding) and I was up.  2 Spades is certainly a possible bid, but he won't play you for 4.  2NT is also possible, but the opponents were red and if -180 is a worst case scenario, I'm not too worried.  As you may have guessed, I passed.

Scooter led the Ace of Spades and dummy tracked:

QJ42 / K9753 / 732 / 5

Ugh.  3 card support and a singleton.  This hand might have raised without Scooter's double.  Oh well.  Let's try to beat this.

I discouraged Spades (silently praying that Scooter wouldn't play me for a stiff 9 on the auction) and Scooter smartly switched to a trump.  Now I have another decision.  Do I play Ace and my low Diamond, hoping for a misguess, or Ace Queen to keep the possibility of a late Club ruff open (if Declarer draws the normal inference in Diamonds from the auction)?

QJ4 / K9753 / 73 / 5 (Dummy, my RHO)

863 / Q84 / QJ6 / T4 (My hand)

I chickened out and played Ace Queen.  Declarer won his King as Scooter pitched a nebulous Club (the 7, playing udca as always) and now Declarer had a problem of his own:  How to continue (needing 7 more tricks.)

QJ4 / K9753 / 7 / 5 (Dummy)

- / A6 / T98 / AJ632 (Declarer)

Declarer played Ace of Clubs, ruffed a Club, and ran a top Spade around to Scooter's King, pitching a Club.  How do you like the line so far?

Ummm, not so fantastic.  Scooter won his King of Spades (3rd trick,) cashed the KQ of clubs (4 & 5) and I scored my Jack of Diamonds later for down 1.

Declarer had somewhat the right idea, but neglected to see that setting up the Spade wouldn't do him any good unless he had a loser left over to pitch on it.  The simplest and safest road to 8 tricks is to play a Heart to the King (2nd trick,) then swing the Queen of Spades around to Scooter's King, win the return with the appropriate round Ace (3), cash the other round Ace (4), ruff a club (5), pitch a club on the established Spade (6) and then try to figure out how to take 2 more tricks with your T98 of trumps when the highest trump outstanding is the Jack.  I STILL don't know if I should have returned a low Diamond at trick 3.  In theory it's our only chance, but if Declarer is bad enough to misguess Diamonds, he might be bad enough to blow the contract later anyway (and if he guesses right and plays the wheels off the hand, he can make an uptrick.)

Let's now look at how our hands potentially meshed on offense:

AKT5 / JT2 / 4 / KQ987

9863 / Q84 / AQJ6 / T4

It turns out they can beat 2 Spades on a partial crossruff, so my 1NT bid was the lucky winner this time.  Seems like every time I try it though, partner turns up with AKxx of whatever suit I bypassed.

I like Scooter's double (I didn't at first, not that I said anything.)  It seems odd to make a takeout double when you already know the only suit where you potentially have an 8-card fit, but it's a nice flexible call and caters to a hand like I actually held (except with 1 less Spade and 1 more Club maybe.)  The biggest downside is if we stagger into a spade Moyse, the long hand is taking the tap, which generally is a no-no for successful Moyses.

+200 was worth 6 IMPs and change.