Both Ways?

10 4 3
K 10 9 8 7
Q 10 9
J 10
K J 7 Q 9 8 6 2
A J 2 Q 6 5 3
A 8 3 K J 7
A Q 8 6 2
A 5
4
6 5 4 2
K 9 7 5 4 3 Vul: Both

WestNorthEastSouth
1 NT Pass 2 * Pass
2 Pass Pass 3
Dbl All Pass * Transfer

At the top of the tally for this hand was an E-W pair in 3 clubs, doubled and redoubled, down 3, for minus 1600. At the bottom, was the above N-S pair in the same contract, except for the redouble, also going down three for minus 800. The redoubling pair got a little mixed up, it would seem, and that has nothing to do with balancing. The declaring side above stuck in a balancing bid to their eventual dismay, one might presume.
I picked up an e-mail from a former partner I was no longer in contact with. Apparently I'd printed it out intending to read it shortly and mislaid it. Anyway, she made two comments that I would have loved to respond to. One was that she knew I hated balancing bids, and from that, might miss a partner who would be willing to play with me otherwise. I don't believe I ever said I hated balancing bids. Hey, if they work, they work, and what's there to hate about that? However, I will admit that my opinion of balancing bids is so low that anyone not given to listening closely might presume that I hate them. And as for missing a partner who would otherwise want to play with me, well, I don't quite catch the logic of wanting to latch onto such a partner, even aside from the personal distaste of falsifying my views to make myself appealing.
What I have said is that balancing bids are the most overrated bid in bridge. They represent an awful lot of danger for a very tenuous possibility of coming out ahead on the exchange, or rather, I should say a very tenuous chance of coming out ahead with first-rate opponents. Given a mixed bag of skills that you're playing against, your chances of coming out ahead might be upgraded from "very tenuous" to "tenuous". There are a lot of things that can go wrong on your balancing bids, and not all that much that is likely to go right.
Had I been writing to that partner, I would have offered this challenge: for every balancing bid that works for the balancer, I'll give you three that don't. Actually, I would have had an ulterior motive for that challenge, not only to demonstrate how common disasters are, but I would honestly have liked to have some successful balancing bids shown to me.
There isn't much to discuss about the above balancing bid. Seven hcp's. A meagre suit headed by the K 9. Vulnerable. Is that sophisticated? And don't say I didn't warn you, for I have listed the most common disasters as: (1) You get in over your head for a stiff penalty beyond whatever the opponents could have otherwise scored; (2) You help the opponents find a better contract. Here the balancer substantially covered both bases. He not only went for greater numbers than the opponents could have garnered, but he spared them from an inferior contract. Of the 23 declarers here, 19 were making game! These guys didn't get above the 2 level.
Make no mistake about it. When you balance, you're banking on the competence of your opponents. And even there, even if they are fully competent, there's no great likelihood that two people, who haven't found the wherewithal to bid on three previous chances would -- vulnerable -- have available a resting spot at the three level that would be better than minus 170. Down one doubled is more than that. But even without a double, where is there any indication that you have 8 winners? Now when you factor in the question of whether these are competent bidders you're facing, such a balancing bid on such meagre values becomes totally absurd.
I knew I had another disastrous balancing bid over 2 spades, where the balancers wound up in 3 diamonds and minus 500 when the opponents were only going for a partial. But a funny thing happened on the way to locating the hand. First, I found two such hands, to wit: here (scroll down to first hand given) and here. And the second funny thing is that I had said I hate 'em on the latter of those two hands. I just didn't remember having said that so explicitly.