Friday, August 06, 2004 9:32 AM

Hand Evaluation - D.S.I.P. ( Jump to Game )

PITBULLS:

One of the defaults for a penalty double is a pre-empt. If you or your partners pre-empt , old fashioned penalty doubles apply. When you open or overcall with partner jumping to game or makes a conventional pre-emptive bid at the 3 level , he is describing his hand as pre-emptive in nature. You know quite a bit about his hand already so D.S.I.P. doubles are not necessary. You know enough to take action yourself without his input as in all pre-empts he has described his hand pretty well already. This means that you are captain of the ship so can control the auction. When you double , it is penalty so if you pass the auction ends for your side. D.S.I.P. double theory is very much defined by the context of the auction. If the auction on your side is pre-emptive in nature , captaincy applies. Pre-emption on their side is either forcing pass theory or D.S.I.P. competitive double theory.

Stan Cabay gives a couple of auction that describes the above principle well. Both vul

W N E S

1♦ 1♥

1♠ 4♥ 4♠ ? You have ♠xx ♥AJ10xx ♦Kxxxx ♣x vul . You hear partner pre-empt to 4♥ so they bid their game . You are content so

you pass which ends the auction. You do not want partner making a D.S.I.P. double as you no longer want anything to do with this auction.

You are vul and they are not .

W N E S

P 1♥

1♠ 4♥ 4♠ ? You have ♠xx ♥Qxxxxx ♦AQ ♣AQx and after partner has pre-empted to 4♥ vul , you decide that defending a non vul 4♠ is a good

idea so you pass . This ends the auction for your side.

These hands point out that D.S.I.P. doubles are not necessary in every competitive auction. D.S.I.P. doubles are intended to help in variable ambiguous auctions. In non pre-emptive situations major vrs major competing right up to & including the game level , D.S.I.P. theory assists us very well. However , when partner makes a descriptive pre-emptive bid , old fashioned penalty doubles work quite well. D.S.I.P. theory takes a back seat to captaincy.

Eric Kokish says that after partner ( opening bid side only ) makes a simple raise with opener jumping to game regardless of the vulnerability, the pre-emptive rules apply. Forcing passes do not apply but neither do D.S.I.P. doubles. Eric contends that this is a captaincy situation so the crew can only make a penalty double. If the captain , doubles it is also a trump stack penalty double.

The above rule changes if the opponents bid slam .If partner pre-empts and they bid slam , a double by either partner is a request to sacrifice and not a penalty double. Making penalty doubles of voluntary bid slams makes no sense , so we play it as the “double/undouble” tool for preventing pseudo sacrifices.