The downside of Lightner doubles and Linda gets a headache

Doubling a slam is a two edge sword as East discovered in a deal on BBO today.  You can waste a lot of brain power figuring out what slam to play once East’s doubles as I discovered.  This is the situation.  I was sitting North

The auction started quietly with two passes to me and I opened 1♣ .  East overcalled 1♠ and Francine bid 2♦ .  East bid 2♠ and I doubled.  At this point I wasn’t really sure where I was headed and double seemed the most flexible.  East passed and Francine bid 3♥ .  This auction continued like this

Since Francine was a passed hand she had to be wildly distributional and her diamonds were better than her hearts.  I thought if we happened to be on a 4-4 heart fit that she might be able to throw a heart loser on my ♠ A so diamonds seemed the best spot.  Then East doubled.  This just had to be a heart void.  Francine passed it to me and I was worried.  If East had a heart void then maybe West had a heart winner, say J10xx.  I could try 6♥ or 6NT.  What I knew was that 6♦ doubled was the wrong place.  There was no way Francine could make a decision between hearts and notrump (she didn’t know about my black suit cards.)   It seemed unlikely Francine had a club void but for the bid she probably had a stiff (possibly the ace but with solid diamonds that was too much for a passed hand).  If she a club void then she was 7-5-1?  or 8-5-0?  Most importantly if her diamonds weren’t completely solid she might have to ruff one because they were splitting to a void.  I decided to bid 6♥ .  This was doubled after a lot of thought and I struggled with 6NT one more time but decided to pass.  As it turned out anything I did (other than pass 6D would work).  Redouble would work only if I was prepared to bid 6NT if they decided to run to 6♠ because it is a great save.

Going back a stage, if East passes 6♦ because he suspects he doesn’t want to defend 6♥ then would West figure the ruff out.  Probably not, because we all believe in Lightner doubles so much.  Maybe it isn’t all that great in these revealing auctions.

Dealer: South Vul: Both	Linda ♠ A765 ♥ AK63 ♦ A8 ♣ K52
West ♠ Q1042 ♥ J752 ♦ 92 ♣ J106		East ♠ KJ983 ♥ – ♦ 43 ♣ AQ9874
	Francine ♠ – ♥ Q10984 ♦ KQJ10765 ♣ 3