Don't Freeze

Dealer:  South Vul: E-W	Charlie ♠T42 ♥A8743 ♦AQ32 ♣4
Michael ♠J73 ♥J95 ♦J765 ♣Q63		William ♠8 ♥KQT6 ♦K984 ♣AKT2
	Freddie ♠AKQ965 ♥2 ♦T ♣J9875

South	West	North	East
Freddie	Michael	Charlie	William
2♠	Pass	Pass	Double
Redouble	All Pass

Opening Lead: ♠ 3

William and I were playing at the 2015 Charlottesville Regional when we came to Free-Wheeling Freddie and Cautious Charlie’s table and I was dealt this uninspiring hand:

♠J73 ♥J95 ♦J765 ♣Q63

Freddie dealt and opened 2 spades. I passed, Charlie passed, and then William made the bid I dreaded: double. But before I had to bid Freddie made an unexpected redouble! William and I have never discussed how to handle this situation. What should I do?

What would you do?

What I did do was make the same mistake that I’ve seen lots of bridge players make over the years when faced with an unusual situation - I passed without considering the consequences. Charlie passed again, so what do you think William did? His takeout double already told me that he wants me to bid a suit other than spades and I chose not to. Therefore he concluded that I must want to defend against 2 spades, so he passed. The opponents proceeded to make 4 spades for a score of 1040 and a bottom result for us.

When Freddie made the unusual bid of redouble, I needed to do more than just focus on how awful my hand was. I needed to think about what partner was going to do. Had I done that I would’ve bid us to 3 diamonds. This would’ve gotten set, but would’ve been a good result since at most of the other tables north-south bid their making game of 4 spades.

Welcome to Bumblepuppy Bridge

Welcome to our blog. We are Michael Haddox-Schatz and William VanDyke, two software developers who are trying to become better bridge players. Since teaching is a great way of learning, we thought it'd be useful to create a blog sharing our experiences. As for the name of this blog, well...

Bumblepuppy - a game of whist played carelessly or contrary to rules and conventions. (Dictionary.com)

In his book, "Bumblepuppy Days: The Evolution from Whist to Bridge", Julian Laderman tells the story of how whist evolved into the game of bridge as we know it. Somewhere along the way, the delightful term "bumblepuppy" was lost. We think this word still has a place in modern bridge.

A lot of writers focus on amazing plays, but knowing that a world class player needed a moment of inspiration to find the right line makes finding that line feel a little unreachable. Since more than 50% of ACBL members are non-life masters we assume we are not alone in that feeling.

This blog will focus on bumblepuppy bridge. Every hand in this blog is a real hand played by real players. The plays made (or more often, missed) on these pages are plays that an average bridge player is capable of making, given concentration. We've rotated the hands for presentation and change the names to protect the innocent (guilty?), but otherwise these are all actual hands as they were played by actual players.

This is our story. We hope you enjoy these tales, and please comment with any questions, complaints, or suggestions you may have.