Redouble!

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

West	North	East	South
			Pass
1 *	Pass	1	Pass
2	Pass	Pass	2
Dbl	Pass	Pass	Redbl
All	pass		*Alerted

The South hand here was bid by an expert. Or at least, that's as he sees himself according to his OKbridge ranking. Myself, I would say this is one expert you don't want to follow. There seems to be a very tenuous relation between his perception of potential and actual potential here. No, this isn't just hindsight. Let me start with the things he knows and then move onto the matters he couldn't have known for sure, but certainly shouldn't have been surprised by.

First, he doesn't have a 5-card suit, nor a three-suited hand, nor two-suited hand with fairly good holdings in the unbidden suits, where he might chance a little more. [Not sure what the alert was for one club. The hand isn't strong enough for a Precision forcing one club opener.] Secondly, he's sitting opposite a partner who has passed twice, including an opportunity to make some noise over a club. Over one club! Thirdly with 9 hcp's, he has fewer than average -- and wants to go for the majority of the tricks opposite a partner who has only passed?

What he couldn't have known but certainly shouldn't have been surprised by: First, the opponents have a clear preponderance of the hcp's. Secondly, there is no particularly good fit here. Thirdly, and most important, there is no improvement on the hand available when the opponents find their two-heart partial! And it's a serious mistake to think there necessarily must be when the bidding dies at two hearts or even that there probably is.

Which brings me to the redouble, the topic at issue here. There also is no improvement available over 2 spades doubled. That also certainly shouldn't have come as a surprise. When the partners combined had passed four times? That should just be assumed in one's calculations about whether to enter the bidding on that mediocre holding. You can't go backwards, and you can't expect that if you get doubled, you'll find a convenient escape with a redouble. If North took his partner out of that contract, his obvious choice would have been diamonds -- at on level higher where he stands to go down one more trick than this declarer did. (He might get by with only one club loser on heart finessing if the opponents don't hit clubs early.)

The S.O.S. redouble is not an easy exit from a bad contract! That is to say, it's isn't necessarily so, though if you employ it often enough, it's bound to work a couple of times before you die of old age. But I would say it's just as serious and wrongheaded a mistake to think you can escape from a bad contract with a redouble as to think one must balance when the opponents are willing to let the bidding die at the two level. Could declarer have felt confident he would make his contract and thus was not making an S.O.S. redouble? Oh no. That's just too unrealistic a scenario to entertain.

Here, declarer went down two, and the redouble only served to parlay a minus 300 to minus 600. The opponents were on a path to plus 140.