Source: http://www.pikier.com
Penality – the unit of measuring doubles Part I by Lucasz Slawinski
How to handle the doubles ?
The notion of penality (of a double and of a hand) enable us to formulate very clear rules:
| Double if… | the penality of your hand = penality of the double |
If the penality of your hand is TOO SMALL (remember that negative values, even minus 50%, are possible), the opponents may fulfil the doubled contract.
If the penality of your hand is TOO GREAT, you will be (usually) in big trouble when – quite likely – your partner removes the double. It may turn out that the contract declared by our side would not be any adequate compensation for the opponents’ loss in their undoubled contract, and even more, no contract could be made by our side (the greater the penality of your hand, the smaller the chance of making any contract).
The experiences with SAND have shown that with 50% excess of penality a pass is in order, not worrying about the result (this is also true when the penality of the hand is 150%, while the penality of the double is only 100 %).
Partner‘s action in response to the suggestions largely depends on the type of hand he possesses. It would be impossible to make a sensible decision by acting automatically in response to the doubler’s suggestions as is often foolishly recommended; cooperation is required to deal with doubles satisfactorily:
| Accept the double if… | distributional penality of your hand + penality of the double ≥ 100% |
Why only „distributional penality” ?
Well, you can do nothing about the lack of honor strength („accident at work”). Accepting the double may lead to the contract made, while takeout may cause even worse disaster. Therefore, it pays better to pass (the distribution is favorable) hoping for partner’s additional (hidden) defensive values and… excellent defence.
Deviations from required penality:
Bidding is a statistical process – each decision is uncertain by its very nature and even those statistically optimal are uncertain (due to imperfectness of algorithms and human mind). Thus, the calculation of penality of the hand is also uncertain.
Too small penality of the hand can be compensated by surplus honor values, since it reduces the threat of the opponents’ making of the doubled contract (at worst, the size of the penalty will be too small – which will cause the loss but not a disaster).
Too great penality of the hand can also be compensated by surplus honor values ! – since if partner removes the double we have enough in reserve to correct the contract.
Those recommendation are in line with the general directive: The greatest the deviation from the hand expected by partner, the greatest surplus honor values we should have.
What should the penalities of doubles be ?
Obviously, it’s useless to adopt agreements like „All are positive” (100%) or “All (up to a certain level) are negative” (0%), and agreeing on something like “In this sequence the double has the penality from 0 to 50%” would be even worse. Appointing exact penality to each double would be best, and any deviations and doubts concerning the penality of actual hand should be left to a player.
The penality of a double depends on the auction so far …
Continued…