This whole hand has the stench of 800 at the four level, so I want to pass.
But let's look closer.
4 was forcing. Does the opponent's 4 take the force off? I don't know.
I'm guessing that if I pass, partner will not go quiet, doubling. Now I
must bid 4. If partner thought my pass was forcing, might he interpret
this sequence as forward going? Not in my partnership with JoAnna, where
we play pass and pull as the weaker action (as recommended by Kit Woolsey;
he was very convincing).
So back to the issue at hand. I believe that in a standard leaping
Michaels expert partnership, 4 has set up a force through 4 or a double
of the opponents. It follows that in a standard expert partnership, the
sequence of pass and pull would be forward going while a direct 4 would
not be. So your choices are pass/pass and hope for four tricks or bid 4
and hope for 8 tricks or no double or a 5 call.
It seems like 4 is the "safe" action. Strange, but that is what I'm doing.
Mike, Robb, and John claim that 4 is forcing and sets up a force at all
levels. That's simple enough, but I don't think it's best. I like
to play that 4 is forcing on any hand with a likely cover card or
a fit. It does not set up a force in later auctions. I think it's
illogical to play that it sets up a force as the whole point of the
4 bid is to show that we have distributional rather than high card
values. When we have shape and they have shape, forcing is unwise
unless we know we have a substantial majority of the high cards, really
of the aces. I could get my arm twisted to agree that we are in a force
because they opened a preempt in 3rd seat, but I've learned by now that this
does not promise a bad hand. Anyway, I think that we are not in a force
and could pass 4 if we wanted to. I just don't want to.
As far as the real hand goes, there was lots of debate as to whether
the double of 5 sets up a force; few suggested that we were in a
force because of 4. That's a reasonable way to play, but again,
since I think that partner's 4 bid could be based on negative
defence, I don't like it. I think it should show clubs. In fact,
the hand held KQx and a void heart. The whole hand was approximately
KQ98x --- AK10xx KQx. Against the hand above, of course 6 gets doubled
and butchered. In practice, I assume it made; I don't know the real hand.
I can imagine that doubling 5 lets us beat 5 by getting a quick
club shift from partner. Or beats it another. I could be convinced
that the double of 5 should be artificial (they aren't planning to
play clubs, right? right? Hmmm...) and set up a force. Then again,
I'd feel REALLY dumb if they repounded 5 and could make it when
5 was going down on a bad break. Anyway, I'm not sure the double
rule's best here, but in other similar situations it probably is.
When?
A couple panelists mentioned reversing pass-and-pull to show the
weak hand rather than the slam try. This has mild theoretical
merit, but it has, in my opinion, pragmatic disadvantages. If
partner doubles slowly when we have a slam try, it's obvious to
any committee (I hope!) that we were planning to bid again to
make a slam try, so we won't be forced to pass the double. On
the other hand, if we have the weak hand, many committees are
going to make us defend. In theory, if partner always doubled in
tempo, we'd be fine, but these auctions are hard, and he's going
to have to think fairly often. Thus, in the long run, strong
pass-and-pull seems safer. Maybe when committees are much better
than they are now weak pass-and-pull will be right.