Those of us who have played for many years, even decades, have seen many innovations in the game of bridge. For example, the game started with just two basic types of doubles, the takeout and the penalty. Now we’ve added responsive and support doubles; and several others.
I started my bridge ‘career’ in the late sixties, at the University of Iowa Memorial Union. There was always at least one table playing bridge throughout the day. Students would come and go, rotate in and out depending on their class schedule.
At that time, there were only the two basic doubles being used – takeout and penalty. Most of the time it was easy to determine which double partner had in mind. But on occasion, there was some ambiguity as to which double was intended by partner. This lead to the invention of the Khrushchev double.
Remember, at that time, there were no bidding boxes so all bids had to be verbalized. So, the takeout double was simply verbalized as, “double.” The penalty double started with, “I double”, immediately followed by removing the shoe of your choice and pounding it on the table, thus removing all ambiguity as to the intent! Fortunately, there was no Director to call.
With the advent of the bidding box, I recommend the resurrection of the Khrushchev double by adding the following bidding tab to the bidding box:
Historical Note: Some of you may recall that Nikita Khrushchev purportedly removed his shoe, and banged on the podium in order to make a point while giving a speech at the United Nations on October 12, 1960.