Be Wary of those Redoubles


Q 7
K 5 4 2
K 7 6 2
A Q 9
J 8 5 4 2 10 9 6 3
Q J 10 9 3 ------
------ J 9 5
7 6 5 J 10 8 4 3 2
A K
A 8 7 6
A Q 10 8 4 3
KVul: No one

NorthEastSouthWest
1 2
2 3 4 Pass
5 Pass 5 Pass
5 NT Pass 7 All pass
NorthEastSouthWest
1 Dbl
Redbl All pass
This is a different type of redouble you'd better be wary of: their redouble! That is, on a one of anything, double, redouble sequence. The redoubling side should have a clear preponderance of the points, and though this doesn't always spell disaster by any means -- you might have a good 9-card fit, or if not-vul, whatever they can pick up from you might not be worth a double. But it can be disastrous -- particularly vulnerable, two level, no good fit and all that jazz. In any event, there is one thing I could call non-negotiable: you've got to run from the redouble. Entering your own bidding may or may not turn out disastrous, but I've never seen a time when letting the redouble hold wasn't a disaster. They'll undoubtedly make their bid, and the closer they are to foregoing a game bid, the more likely they'll make up for it on overtricks.
A lot of people, including some Life Masters, don't seem to recognize the value of overtricks. I recall one, in a "fun" game between sessions, who asked, "That's not game, is it?" on a one club, double, redouble, pass, pass sequence. On being assured that it was not, he proceeded to pass -- and give up more points than if they'd been in slam! (Three overtricks will do it vulnerable, four not vul. Three vul overtricks would be 1200, plus a hundred for making a redoubled contract, plus 80 for the trick score and 50 for making a partial. Worse, one overtrick is worse than game: not vul: 200 for the overtrick, 100 for the redoubled contract, 50 for the partial and 80 for the trick score. Comes to 430. Try vul: 400 for the overtrick, plus 100 plus 130 = 630. So a simple partial is elevated to more than game!)
I have always followed the policy that if I have a 5-card or longer suit, I'll bid it, promising no points, and help my partner, I hope, out of a difficult situation, while if I don't have such a suit, I'll pass and let my partner bid his best suit. The opponents, after all, haven't exchanged a whole lot of information, at least about denominations, and unless we run into a real trump stack, it's unlikely they'll want to double at the one level (particularly if we're not vul.)
But watch those redoubles!

The first bidding sequence above was carried out by Paul Soloway and Bobby Goldman in a famous OKBridge match, and they met their own disaster on a heart lead, where 7 no would have been cold. I thought I'd let it stay, though it has no relevance to the redouble. The redoubled sequence was from an ordinary OKBridge pair.
I said above that I'd never seen letting a redouble stand fail to lead to disaster, though in my opening discussion I'd referred to a time when I was willing to let the redouble stand (while recognizing that my partner could hardly read my mind), and since we set the 2-level contract two, I guess passing out the one level redouble wouldn't have been a disaster. Still, that was a rare bird, and though that might have been allowed to stand without leading to a disaster, it wasn't and so didn't become the first such case I saw. In any event, I said letting it stand will "almost surely" lead to disaster.