Upside Down Count

[Nadreck]

In last nights Vugraph from the Senior Bowl - Round 4 - Bd 3 the Danish pair were defending 3 Spades. West lead the KD and East had to signal his partner from

J 10 4. Playing Reverse Count he had the choice of playing the J and giving away a trick or playing low and giving the wrong count. He played the 4 but his partner continued with the A (assuming an even number) which blew the defence.

 

My partner claims this to be a classic case of why Reverse count does not work and refuses to consider them. Does any one have any examples of where normal count would give similar problems or advice on the advantages or otherwise of reverse count and attitude.

 

Thanks

[Guest Jlall]

had one once... KQ32 with me, T94 with pard, 875 with dummy on my left, AJ6 on my right.

 

King lead, low... hehe pard was screwed. Pard is also a great player and the opps were less than great so he confidently played the ten, and sure enough they ducked.

[Chamaco]

Does any one have any examples of where normal count would give similar problems or advice on the advantages or otherwise of reverse count and attitude.

With normal count, when you hold doubleton Hx, if you play the small card, pard will play you for an odd number and might be screwed :-)

 

Of course when u have tripleton HHx, std count works better, but with doubleton Hx, reverse count is better: I think the second case is much more frequent, so I'd go with reverse count :-)

[Guest Jlall]

It really doesn't matter if you play standard or upside down. The technical differences are so minor, just play whatever you're comfortable with.

[barmar]

There's an article in the latest Bridge World called "The Odds in Signaling", which discusses ambiguous signals, especially in light of declarer trying to confuse things.

 

But as regards this thread, no matter what signaling system you're using, there will always be cases where you can't afford to play the appropriate card.

[Stephen Tu]

In most cases upside-down signalling works better, in general your signals tend to be a lot clearer and harder to obscure with a falsecard. The cases where it works worse are unblocking in NT and layouts like the one posted. If this bothers you, try Scanian signals! Upside-down most of the time, but standard when dummy doesn't have a finessable honor.

[Flame]

Imo reverse count are way better.

Its simple you want to give count without throwing an important card, and the chance of this happend are much better when you play udca, since when you only have a problem with 3 cards when 2 of them are important, while playing normal you have a problem any time you have 2 cards with one of them important.

Clearly the chances of IIx (I=important) are not as high as Ix.

In practice i feel ita alot easier for me, no need to think all the time, "can i throw this 9 of 9x..." almost all the time u have an easy card to throw low from doublton and second low from triplton. also the count in trump is the same as on other suit which is good too.

[han]

in general your signals tend to be a lot clearer and harder to obscure with a falsecard.

Please explain.

[mike777]

In last nights Vugraph from the Senior Bowl - Round 4 - Bd 3 the Danish pair were defending 3 Spades. West lead the KD and East had to signal his partner from

J 10 4. Playing Reverse Count he had the choice of playing the J and giving away a trick or playing low and giving the wrong count. He played the 4 but his partner continued with the A (assuming an even number) which blew the defence.

 

My partner claims this to be a classic case of why Reverse count does not work and refuses to consider them. Does any one have any examples of where normal count would give similar problems or advice on the advantages or otherwise of reverse count and attitude.

 

Thanks

When standard or upside down becomes one of the most major issues a player needs to improve on...LOL you are no longer an int. level player, you are true expert.

[Stephen Tu]

in general your signals tend to be a lot clearer and harder to obscure with a falsecard.

 

Please explain.

 

Playing standard, when you have something, and want to encourage, you often cannot afford to play your absolute highest spot because it could cost a trick; you have to throw a middle spot. Upside-down you can afford to play your absolute lowest spot.

And when discouraging, if you have nothing, you can usually afford to play your very top card.

 

Signals with lowest & highest cards are easier to read than signals with middle cards. There's less "is that spot meant as discouraging, or just the highest that partner could afford to encourage with?" & vice versa. The more extreme your spots are, the harder it is for declarer to play a card that can continue to make it unclear. There are fewer combinations of cards where it's unclear whether your card is high or low.

[mike777]

in general your signals tend to be a lot clearer and harder to obscure with a falsecard.

 

Please explain.

 

Playing standard, when you have something, and want to encourage, you often cannot afford to play your absolute highest spot because it could cost a trick; you have to throw a middle spot. Upside-down you can afford to play your absolute lowest spot.

And when discouraging, if you have nothing, you can usually afford to play your very top card.

 

Signals with lowest & highest cards are easier to read than signals with middle cards. There's less "is that spot meant as discouraging, or just the highest that partner could afford to encourage with?" & vice versa. The more extreme your spots are, the harder it is for declarer to play a card that can continue to make it unclear. There are fewer combinations of cards where it's unclear whether your card is high or low.

This sounds like an arguement to play attitude at trick one with obvious shift and suit preference often starting at trick two, not an arguement for upside down signals.

[Stephen Tu]

This sounds like an arguement to play attitude at trick one with obvious shift and suit preference often starting at trick two, not an arguement for upside down signals

 

Don't see your logic. Obvious shift principles are not incompatible with upside down signalling. If you use low=neutral, high=obvious shift, your signals will be clearer for the same reasons. When you have stuff in the suit, want to discourage a shift, you cannot always afford to play high spot cards and your signals will be clear less often than if you used upside-down.

[Flame]

This sounds like an arguement to play attitude at trick one with obvious shift and suit preference often starting at trick two, not an arguement for upside down signals

 

Don't see your logic. Obvious shift principles are not incompatible with upside down signalling. If you use low=neutral, high=obvious shift, your signals will be clearer for the same reasons. When you have stuff in the suit, want to discourage a shift, you cannot always afford to play high spot cards and your signals will be clear less often than if you used upside-down.

What he ment is that the post here asked about the count part of the UDCA (the C)

and what you said is more about the attitude part (The A)

Since i believe you should decide whenter you play upside down or std and play both attitude and count on the same way (i tried the other way and its was triable) i think your talking about attitude were still relevant.

[Free]

I've been playing reversed signaling for a while now, and I got better results in defense. Dunno if it's because of the signaling or because suddenly partner believes my count signals.

 

One of the main advantages is that the one signaling should have 1 card higher than the one he plays, unless he's singleton. A while ago this was very interesting: partner had Q9x, dummy had Jxx, I had KTxxx and declarer Ax. I played small and partner played the 9 over declarer's Ace: at first sight it would be discouraging, but he had to have a higher card, so he had the Q! :D

 

In general I don't think it has extreme advantages or disadvantages. Every signaling method has it's problems from time to time. Blaim it on the system and play the next board with full confidence...