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IDEAL

If “I” was to create the perfect “deal” to demonstrate a certain convention, then this would be it. It had all the ingredients, all the clues, to make one glad one had this weapon in one’s armoury. Let’s look…

 

It's Teams and a fast and furious auction has left you, with almost certainly the least interesting of the four hands at the table, on lead. 1NT was 15-17 and the redouble was not for rescue! Go on, prove East wrong!

Your choice is?

It’s the Lightner Double, usually (though not always) of a slam suggesting the player on lead makes an unusual lead. This can often (though not always!) be dummy’s first bid suit but is not for a suit bid by your partner. A good example of when it is not dummy's suit is when dummy has not bid a suit!

In somewhat bitter experiences of this double, I have seen it backfire for many different reasons:

• The defender picked the wrong suit
• Declarer was void in the requested suit
• Against a small slam, after getting the ruff, there was no second trick for the defence
• The player on lead was void in that suit! (Dwayne Crombie…what unsweet memories I have of that)
• The player on lead could not find the lead from his doubleton, to give his partner an immediate ruff…the only lead to beat the slam
• The opposition headed off to a making 6NT
• The opposition headed off to another suit slam which made whereas the original slam was unmakeable with or without the double (happier memories of that!)

All of these are excellent reasons to abandon this convention…. but not this time.

• The double said clearly “do not lead the suit I bid” since that would not be unusual
• North had a 100% certain second trick as long as South found the right lead.
• The right lead was obvious since South had loads of the suit
• The opposition could not make 6NT (at least as long as North led sensibly) or retreat to any other making contract.

So, what happened? South turned +400 into -2070 by leading a heart!

 

That redouble was rather two-way. On a good day, their partner might produce the right cards. There again, South might take fright and retreat to 7 which should only be two down (A ruffed and 5 are both entries to dummy to take a right view in trumps.) though why concede 500 when you can collect 400? Few run from such a redouble. There’s pride and also the chance that your own partner is right to double. They were!

This occurred in a friendly on-line Teams match with a huge swing occurring on this board. The bidding at the other table was interesting, the double in particular, very interesting.

 

1 was Precision style with Jo Simpson’s 2NT showing a “non-touching” 2-suited hand, a good hand since 1NT would have said the same thing. Peter Newell took a more controlled route to slam and received a 0 or 3 Key-Card response (obviously 3 because of the 1 opener) and bid to the spade slam seemingly unconcerned about Jo’s double.

With the lead already requested, or so Jo thought, there was no need to double 6, to confuse partner. Sam Simpson, sitting South, could work out which suits Jo had (since the opposition seemed well endowed in spades). Without the double of 5, he might have considered sacrificing in 7 himself. Yet, Jo had doubled and Sam could guess why.

No diamonds, partner?

He found the diamond lead and was soon writing down +100 and in total 19 imps on the board.

If the “ideal” deal for the Lightner double produces 19 imps in the "out" column, it might be a good time to cast that convention to the scrap-heap of unwanted conventions.

A shame, really as this deal was such a good example of its use…and should have rewarded its users with +7 imps.  

Where would we be without pre-empts?

 

 

We would have a lot less fun and a lot less problems. So, what to bid this time?

Richard Solomon

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