A “Challenge” for the 21st Century

 

If you really want to explore how to deal with today’s aggressive bidders (those who seem to bid on “tram tickets” and get away with it) there is a good book on the subject: “Golden Rules of Competitive Auctions” by Julian Pottage & Marc Smith.  One bid they address in some detail is the Competitive Double, expanding its original use to cover many awkward situations arising from opponents’ interference.  For example, one such, the “Snapdragon” Double, can solve a tricky problem for a fourth position bidder after three suits have already been bid.  Consider such sequences as:

 

                        N                     E                     S                     W

                        1H                   2C                   2D                   ?

or                     1C                   1H                   2D                   ?

or                     1D                   1S                   2C                   ?

 

Assuming that West has enough strength to consider competing, then the usual natural options are either to raise partner with a fit, or, if there is no fit, perhaps to bid the remaining suit if holding 6 or more.  The Snap Dragon competitive double is the “piggy in the middle”.  It shows a good 5-card holding in the unbid suit, (including two of the top three honours) plus secondary support for partner’s suit, a doubleton honour say.  It offers partners the option of competing further in either your implied suit with a three-card fit, or in their own with a six-card suit.

Over the century since the Informatory or Takeout Double appeared, we have acquired a variety of further non-penalty doubles: Negative Doubles, Sputnik Doubles, Responsive Doubles, Reopening Doubles, Competitive Doubles, Co-operative Doubles, Support Doubles, Sohl Doubles, Thrump Doubles, and no doubt others you have never heard of.  In fact, the bid “double”, well into the three level, is hardly ever used nowadays as a penalty double in tournament play.  In parts of the USA, they have acknowledged such a development by requiring that low-level penalty doubles be alerted!

I would claim that such a proliferation of non-penalty Doubles is prima facie evidence that such bids, giving partner the option to compete, have become a necessary part of the modern game.  They all carry the general message that you wish to compete but that there is no natural bid in your system that covers adequately the particular hand you hold.  They are powerful tools which give well-established expert partnerships a bidding “edge”.  Applying these concepts, however, forms one of the biggest barriers to success for erstwhile beginners, and indeed even for casual ad hoc partnerships of experienced players.  Misunderstandings can be expensive.

In 1929, Sidney Lenz, one of the early greats (the original inventor of the term “squeeze”) was concerned even then at the subversion of the bid “Double”, as an immediate overcall, to mean “partner please bid”. He therefore suggested a new bid: “Challenge”.  This new bid would mean “partner please compete if you can” and all Doubles would then be for penalties, retaining their original idea of doubling the stakes, as it were.  The idea was tried at some New York clubs, but never gained widespread acceptance.

I suggest it is time to consider re-introducing Lenz’s idea.  The word “Challenge” may not be the best choice for today’s players, perhaps “Compete” or “Takeout” would be more self-explanatory.

Such a bid would also remove an anomaly that began with the first Take-out Double: the Penalty Pass.  One of the original concepts behind the idea of the bid “Double” was to allow every other player at the table to express an opinion, before the bidding died.  If a player converts a non-penalty Double into a Penalty Double, however, by making a Penalty Pass, eg:

 

1 Spade  -  Double (for take-out)  -  Pass (waiting)  -  Pass! (for penalties)

 

only one player can determine whether the auction ends there. This strikes me as unfair to both the Doubler and to the opener’s partner.  Using the “compete” bid, such a situation would lead to the sequence:

 

1 Spade  -  Compete (suggesting partner bid)  -  Pass  -  Double! (penalty)

 

whence there would have to be at least three more calls before the bidding ended.  If fourth bidder merely passed, however, the contract could become one Spade un-doubled, if opener passed too.

Even if the bid were not allowed in major competitions, I feel sure that letting no-fear-level players use such a call would help them to develop the experience to recognise the situations when a non-penalty Double would be appropriate.