This is aHand:

This series (together with its brother, also in this edition of VBlue) is all about the take-out Double. This is the first of the two series.

Most of these deals concern the response to a Double. Do you simply bid your best suit at the lowest level?

Hand 1: Bidding accurately opposite a take-out Double is fairly simple.

The "rule" is not to make the same bid on very different hands.

Partners are delicate flowers and they need careful nurturing...

Bidding

This is a very straightforward hand.  West (on our left) opens 1♦, North has a respectable but minimum take-out Double to which we (South) should respond 2♠ after East Passes.

Not 1♠, notice, which could be based on nothing, but a jump to 2♠, which shows this sort of hand (8 to 11 points, more or less).  This should end the auction; North has done his bit with a Double on a minimum hand, so it would be foolish for him to bid on.

Now, one may say that bidding 2♠ instead of 1♠ has gained nothing and – on this deal – that is probably true. However, on other deals, partner will have an easy time assessing our values (and, more importantly, our lack of them) if we bid with clarity.

If we respond 1â™  on this type of hand and also on, say,

â™  10 6 3 2
♥ 7 4 2
♦ J 5 3 2
♣ Q 6 

  … how is partner supposed to evaluate accurately when he has a good hand?

Play

Anyway – onto the play of the dummy. Against 2♠ West starts off with three rounds of Diamonds (East having made a "come-on" signal by playing the ♦8 before the ♦4). This is awkward and demands that we ruff with one of dummy's high trumps. As the cards lie, we cannot avoid losing two trump tricks to East whether we ruff first with the ♠Q or the ♠9 – West can always regain the lead with the ♥A and lead yet another Diamond.

However, losing two trump tricks is no disaster; all the defense can take is two Spades, one Heart and two Diamonds. We still record the requisite eight tricks.