Tight Doubles and Francine

You NEVER want to make a tight double of a part-score Francine Cimon is declaring.    Francine finds a way to make it somehow.  Here is a case in point.   With nobody vulnerable North passes.  Your partner opens 1♦ and South (Francine) overcalls 1♠ .  This is your hand

You are playing in an established partnership.  I would probably raise diamonds myself but you decide to make a negative double.  When partner bids 2♥ (not extra – partner thinks you have hearts)  East comes back in with 3♣ .  What do you do?  West has too much to pass.  He wasn’t keen on playing in the 4-3 heart fit.  Do you double for penalty?  That is what West did at the table.  He probably didn’t consider that Francine was the declarer.

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ J9 ♥ 108762 ♦ AJ2 ♣ 1062
West ♠ 63 ♥ K53 ♦ Q764 ♣ AJ73		East ♠ AQ74 ♥ QJ4 ♦ K10953 ♣ 4
	South ♠ K10852 ♥ A9 ♦ 8 ♣ KQ985

West led a diamond and Francine won the ♦ A.  She led the ♠ J from dummy and East won the ♠A.  East found a reasonable shift to a club.  Francine played the queen.  What should West do now?  West erred by winning the ♣ A.  Now the contract cannot be defeated if declarer does everything right.  At the table West returned a high diamond which Francine ruffed.  She cashed the SK and led another spade.  There is no use in trumping so West discarded a heart.  Francine returned to hand with the ♥ A and played another spade.  West discard again.  Francine ruffed a diamond.   West with three trump to the jack and a high heart can be endplayed and forced to lead into Francine’s Q9 of clubs for a win of 11 imps.

As it turns out the contract can be defeated after the opening diamond lead.  West must duck the ♣ A when East’s returns a club.  Now when Francine tries to ruff the first spade West ruffs in on the ♣ J and plays ace and another club giving up any chance of making three club tricks on defense.  But declarer has no way to avoid a heart and another spade loser.  West’s goal is to prevent two club ruffs and this is the only way to do it.

The moral of the story: Don’t double Francine in a partscore when she bids strongly.

By the way if you look at the North hand would you pass 3C or would you have converted to 3S when 3C was doubled?  As it turns out 3S has not much play at all.  My reasoning in passing 3♣ was that Francine was 6-5 or 5-5 for this auction.  We don’t have an easy way to show spades and clubs over 1♦ .  Even if she was 6-5 it might play okay in clubs and it would likely be a lot better if she was 5-5.  I don’t know if my reasoning is perfect but it did work on this deal.

I am off to Sarasota tomorrow so the blogs may be few for a while after today.  I hope all of you had a good holiday season.  I just ate a yummy chocolate cream Easter egg which Sally brought into the office.