Ross Driedger
NABC Spring 2013, St. Louis
This hand was from an event that earned me enough gold points for ACBL Life Master. I was playing with my regular partner, Dave Wilson from Stratford, in a Gold Rush Pairs event. Dave is not shy in doubling partscore contracts and as a result we generally get very good results on these hands.
What should West do? For Dave and me, this is an auto-double. We cashed two top Spades, a spade ruff, A and K or Clubs, another Spade ruff and the A of Hearts.
The expert community is somewhat divided on what West should do. As we can see in this poll on Bridge Winners, more than half the responders would have passed with West's hand. Many would play a double as take-out.