Dear Ed & Peter,

If your partner makes a takeout double as the second bidder, the next player answers his partner and you only have one hc point and an evenly distributed hand so you pass...the opening bidder responds and your partner doubles again, the next player bids and you pass again, was that wrong and does your partners bid become a negative double?

tx,

Brosenmeier

Reply from Ed Hoogenkamp ('South'):

Dear Brosenmeier,

(and other readers) please give us more details to answer these type of questions. The complete bidding is essential information.
In this question all depends of the suits bid. Did opponents exchange new suits or just once? Do they have a fit? Did they bid notrump?

So please send us your question again with the actual bidding and I'll do my best to answer it.

Peter, on the other hand is an expert on questions without the actual bidding. He actually prefers it! So he can talk about all the ifs and whens... He loves that. Let's see what he has to say.

Un saludo desde Barcelona

Ed

Reply from Peter van der Linden ('North'):

Dear Brosenmeier,

¹ you ask whether this was a negative double
² you ask whether this was wrong

You write you have only one hc point and an evenly distributed hand.

Question 1 is about partner's second double. It is again for take-out. Some nuancing is necessary though.
If West has rebid his opening suit, the double is 100% take-out:

But if West's rebid is in a new suit, North will certainly have some strength in that suit (he promised in principle the other three suits when doubling the opening):

Whatever the actual bidding was, North's second double is not a negative double. The latter description is only used when the partner of the opening bidder doubles an overcall (though not if the overcall is in notrump).

Question 2: was your second pass wrong?
Certainly not! Since East has bid after partner's second double, you were not obliged to bid, partner was bound to have another chance to bid. Therefore if you would have bid -voluntarily! - over East's rebid you would have shown 'something': not much strength of course, since you have passed once before. So you would show few points and therefore distributional strength.
Your actual hand - one HCP and evenly distributed - clearly did not qualify for such a voluntary bid. Therefore your pass was correct.

If East would have passed North's second double, you would have had to bid (unless you had a good holding in West's second suit, then you could pass - but this is unlikely since East's pass showed preference for West's second suit).

That is all I can say about this matter - maybe I can help you better if you send us your hand and the actual bidding.

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