Disasters

Here are some of the disasters awaiting the casual, inattentive use of the balancing bid:
1. The most frequently encountered, I would say, is that the balancing side gets up too high and suffers a penalty far beyond what the other side could have picked up in its partial -- or on occasion, game.
1 Pass I NT Pass
Pass Double Pass 2
Double All pass

Down 700 when the opponents were only going for a partial. The club bidder had 13 points, and when his partner showed 9 to 11 (Standard American), he saw they weren't going anywhere and so passed. With the re-opening double, he knew the opponents were in trouble and was prepared to double anything they bid. It turned out that his partner had the max, the balancing doubler had 9, his partner 7. So the strongest hand on this side was weaker than the weakest hand on the other, and they wanted to go for a preponderance of the tricks?

A K 7 5 North East South West
A K Q 7
10 9 7 31 Pass 1 NT Pass
5
?
This is North's hand. He opened a diamond, expecting to lift his parner's major suit response skyward. Instead he got a rather discouraging one no trump. Well, what do you do with that hand? Figuring it was far likelier to get into trouble raising his partner to two no and find he had only 6 or 7 points than that they'd be missing game with perhaps 10 points, North passed. So East balanced with two hearts, which was doubled and went down 3, vulnerable. "I didn't expect him to have the world's fair," wailed East, while West instructed North on how he should have bid the hand. Ain't that a dilly? North should bid the hand so that E-W don't make stupid bids?
On another hand in a Swiss Tournament, North opened the hand a heart with 20 points, and when his partner, with 5 points, bid two hearts, he raised it to 4, down one. The hands were too flat to pull game out of the fire. At the other table, the weaker hand went by the book that says you need 6 points for a reponse, and so passed. This brought a one no balancing bid, which was doubled and set 4 tricks -- when their opponents were only going for a partial! (The no trump balancer had 10 hcp's, her partner 5.)
And you might keep in mind the near misses also:
Q 6 4 North East South West
A 7 6 1 Pass 1 Pass
Q 10 7 32 Pass Pass Double
8 7 5Pass 2 All pass
This was the East hand, I believe. [I'm not absolutely sure of this. When I came back to the hand after a couple of months, I found I had 14 cards, including the exact same heart suit as North's hand above, which would hardly lead to a 2 diamond bid. But I remember the result very well, so perhaps my emendation is substantially what East had.] N-S were playing Precision, so the first two bids were artificial. Now with 2 clubs, North announces a legitimate club suit, and South evidently had no quarrel with that. At this point, with a pass by West, they could pick up only 190 points if they won every trick on the hand. But in steps the balancer, and you can imagine how happy East was to step into the bidding on that hand, opposite a partner who hadn't felt strong enough to offer a bid over 1 diamond. Where are all the points?
As it turned out, N-S had the clear preponderance, but they were neither aggressive doublers nor good defenders, for they set the contract only 200 when it should have been doubled and set 4 tricks for 1100!