Mr Liebergot clearly had never played teams-of-eight bridge in Berks and Bucks league division two! A quadruple failure not only can happen, but does happen regularly and is the bread and butter of a team looking to get promoted. Take this week's deal, which is from the Thame v Reading B match.

When Thame was sitting North/South, 2 was opened in first seat, North made a forcing enquiry and the final contracts were 4 and 3NT. As you can see, things weren't sitting particularly well! The declarer in 3NT made all of four tricks for -250, while the one in 4 (which, frankly, should be doubled by West) drifted three off for -150. You can imagine them totting it up on their scorecard and wondering how well they would score.

There are some bidding decisions that can be a little tough. Take West's options over a 2 opening, for instance. He can't bid 2NT because this would tend to suggest a King more than he has. He can't overcall 3 because this would tend to suggest he has hand that isn't a pile of rubbish. The Thame player at our third table made a takeout double, and can you blame him? After all, what else can you do? Oh, hang on...

I was the hero bidding 4, undeterred by North's "obvious" psyche. When dummy came down I did a double-take, managed to eke out a "thank you partner" and proceeded to wrap up ten tricks for +590.

So what would the final contract be at the fourth and final table? This was the bidding:

Yes, you've read that correctly. A second, different, person found a takeout double with the West hand. Poor bids are, in a way, rather like political parties. Some are basically sound with an obvious flaw, but we like to pick them apart nonetheless. Some have more than one problem with them and we could go on at length about why this isn't the right bid for this occasion. This bid, though, is like the BNP — its weaknesses are so many and so obvious to somebody with sense that any criticism is redundant noise and actually kinda patronising. So I'll just shut up and let you admire it. Here's the hand again: A Q 10 J 6 Q 6 4 3 2 K 5 3. Mmmmmmmmm.

East found himself in the unusual position of deciding whether to run from a making 4X into a making 5X. When he did, that was +550 and 12 IMPs on the board.

The alternative title for this article (which, unfortunately, didn't gel as well with the Apollo 13 quote) was Doubling Decisions. It's not often that you find a board where one team declares at all four tables, is doubled when the contracts are making and not doubled when the contracts are going several off and gains 12 IMPs by dint of two horrible takeout doubles and 8 non-vulnerable undertricks.

I shudder to think what it's like in Division Five!