Arguements for other peoples defence preferences

[sceptic]

Hi please use this to challenge why someone prefers their Carding, Signals and leads here

[zasanya]

Challenge somebody's preferences re leads,signals etc?Not done Sir.Thats like challenging somebody's religious beliefs.

[Gerben42]

I would go further and say that I WILL challenge someone's religious beliefs - I'm open for discussion there - but not his opening lead agreements...

[awm]

I like upside-down count and attitude, lavinthal discards, and coded nines and tens versus notrump. Some of these are popular, others not so much. Here's my reasoning:

 

(1) When signaling attitude in a suit, if you have nothing useful in the suit it normally doesn't cost to play one of your highest cards. But if you have some useful (high) cards in the suit, you sometimes need to preserve them. So it's nice to be able to play the lowest card to encourage. Obviously this doesn't matter very often, but it seems to be very slightly better than standard carding.

 

(2) In notrump contracts especially, you often want to signal for a suit you'd like to try establish and run. Generally this means you don't want to pitch a card from that suit. In fact it is pretty rare against notrump that you really want to pitch a card from the suit you really want to signal for. So it's nice to be able to signal for a particular suit without discarding from that suit. Sure, sometimes you can just discourage in some other suit and partner will figure out which suit you want. But occasionally there will be three possible suits to play and partner will still be on a guess (you have shown which suit you don't want but it remains unclear which of the other two you do want). Lavinthal solves this problem nicely.

 

(3) The coded nine and ten leads are probably the most controversial. Some people love them and some people hate them. Basically there are two situations where they seem to make a big difference. One is the situation where declarer needs to place a high honor. Say he has Qxx in dummy and Axx in hand in the suit lead. If a standard jack is lead, declarer doesn't know whether to play for the lead from KJTx(x) and hop queen, or hope for JTxx(x) and try to drop the doubleton king and/or block the suit. If jack denies, then declarer knows what to do. The other situation is one where opening leader's partner needs to place a high honor. One that came up recently, partner lead a standard jack and I held Axx in the suit (dummy had two small). If partner lead from JTxx(x) then declarer has two sure stoppers. I would be better off to switch to my own suit hoping partner has an honor there, rather than continuing the suit lead. However if partner lead from KJTx(x) then I must win the ace and immediately continue the suit lead. Playing jack denies solves this problem. Often whether people love or hate the coded nine/ten leads depends on which of these situations they feel comes up more often, or which they remember better. My feeling is that declarer has a lot of information available already. Often in the situation where declarer is helped, he can actually afford to play a bunch of other cards before the critical decision (in the example, he wins ace and cashes some side suit winners, then eventually opening leader gets in again and plays the ten and he has to guess whether to hop queen). Because of this, declarer will often (but not always) get these situations right anyways. But the situation where partner needs the information usually involves a decision to be made very early in the hand (like trick two) before he has much besides the lead to go on.

[kenberg]

Good topic, and while I appreciate the danger that I might be inviting death threats, I'll jump in anyway.

 

u/d versus right side up: Probably what's best is u/d in response to partner's lead, and right side up on discards. Reason: On discards, it's often practical to toss the suit you don't want and desirable to be able to toss low. On partner's lead, you are stuck with having to play that suit. I don't actually play this with anyone but I have seen it played and it seems logical.

 

 

3rd from even, low from odd against suits versus 4th always. I like this. Read Kantar (I have no precise reference) if you want to see reasoned objections. But on balance I like it. The problem with fourth best against suits is that you frequently want to lead from a holding such as Qxx. Playing 3rd best, the lead of the 2 shows 3 or 5 cards. Playing fourth best, it shows 3 or 4. Harder to work out. Against NT, you less often lead from Qxx so this is less important, and not giving up a spot card advantage is more often important.

 

O/E: This has many fans. I don't like it. Quite often declarer draws trump. I have two. On the third trump I have no wish to tell anyone anything. I wish to throw a spot from xxxx. Not send a message, throw a spot. Partner is often in a pretty good position to work out what is needed without a lot of disclosive chatter from me.

 

 

Still struggling:

1. Leading from spots at trick 1.

 

2. Leading from spots later, when I don't wish to suggest a ruff but also don't wish to suggest strength. Eg I lead a heart against 2S. Later I win the king of spades. I decide on a diamond switch. I hold 753. If I lead the 7 partner might try to give me a ruff. If I lead the 3 partner will play me for an honor. If I lead the 5 partner will have no idea what I have in mind.

[kenberg]

Here is one I got wrong:

 

1NT on my left, passed out, partner leads the Q of clubs. Dummy hits with 942 of clubs, I hold the 6 and the 3. Dummy of course plays low and I play? I would play the 6 from K63 (std cding) so I play the 3. Fine, but declarer won, later I took a trick in another suit, I led the 6 ducked to partner's ten, now she decided to play me for three clubs and played another club from Jx into declarer's Ky, where y>x.

 

I find these issues genuinely tricky. Assuming that I am not willing to adopt the strategy of playing the 6 quickly from K63 and playing it slowly from 63, I don't see what to do and am open to suggestions. Playing upside down signals won't help since it simply interchanges the roles of the 6 and the 3 but does nothing to resolve the basic dilemma. I realized later that with this specific situation I could afford to play the K from K63 since partner's presumed remaining JTx will take rest of the tricks. It would then follow that 6 is from 63, not K63. Yes, but partner might take the first round K as an unblock from Kx, not Kxx, and then be wary of trying to cash the J and T (the winning play if I started with Kxx, the losing play if I started with Kx). The whole thing gives me a headache. It was matchpoints and I am sure we would have come out a trick better if I had played the 6 at T1. I am less convinced I will know what to do when a similar situation arrives in the future.

[cherdano]

Here is one I got wrong:

 

1NT on my left, passed out, partner leads the Q of clubs. Dummy hits with 942 of clubs, I hold the 6 and the 3. Dummy of course plays low and I play? I would play the 6 from K63 (std cding) so I play the 3. Fine, but declarer won, later I took a trick in another suit, I led the 6 ducked to partner's ten, now she decided to play me for three clubs and played another club from Jx into declarer's Ky, where y>x.

IMHO it was clearly your partner who got it wrong.

1. You can't play "count or attitude" as you please on trick one. For me, this is an attitude situation; if declarer takes the first trick, partner should know whether you have 3 tricks running.

2. If you had y63, then you would have played back y, not the 6.

[Apollo81]

Here's an interesting side question:

 

Partner has just signalled with a spot card (9 or lower) Is it:

 

easier to tell when partner has played low?

easier to tell when partner has declined to play low?

the same

 

Opinions?

[kenberg]

Here's an interesting side question:

 

Partner has just signalled with a spot card (9 or lower) Is it:

 

easier to tell when partner has played low?

easier to tell when partner has declined to play low?

the same

 

Opinions?

I don't know the answer, but we were on the favorable end of the difficulty last night in the acbl mp game. Partner opened a club, rho bid 2S, I had Qxx of spades and a big hand. By the time I became pessimistic about slam we were well beyond 3N so I blasted 6C and hoped for a miracle. Rho let the ace of spades, looked at the Qxx in dummy, looked at his partner's spot, and switched. Time to go sacrifice a goat or two.

[Al_U_Card]

Anything works as long as you have an agreement.

 

I prefer standard count (my brain tends to opt out when playing u/d anyway) because there is a slight advantage in getting rid of small cards from longer holdings....so I understand.

 

O-E first discard is pretty flexible but lav etc. are ok as is std.

 

U/D attitude I like for the not wasting good cards part.

 

Leads, as long as you know what you are playing (is the 9 from Q98(x) standard?)

is okay just remember that the rule of 11 only applies to 4th best and it is the rule of 10 for 5th best and the rule of 12 for 3rd best.

 

Trump peters and smith echos are ok but I really like the obvious switch stuff. That has given me more help than any other single (or signal) agreement. :P

 

Perhaps the MOST important is that to trust pard that he is not just throwing cards but that he is using his plays to help you out, so take advantage of the info!!!

[1eyedjack]

Here is one I got wrong:

 

1NT on my left, passed out, partner leads the Q of clubs. Dummy hits with 942 of clubs, I hold the 6 and the 3. Dummy of course plays low and I play?

... whichever card shows an even holding.

 

Vinje recommends a count signal (or unblock) when there are 3+ cards in dummy on an honour lead v NT, and an attitude signal when there are fewer than 3. Seems to work most of the time.

 

As to other aspects of the original post I quite like "Liggy" leads.

Bottom from even, top of a singleton, else:

Xxx, hXx, hxxXx, xXxxx.

Can cause blockage problems when you lead from xX, but nothing is perfect.

This method seems to get around most of the horrors of MUD and makes 4th highest leads internally consistent with UDCA and generally seems to minimise (to my mind) ambiguity without throwing a trick to do so. Obviously there will remain ambiguous situations.

Oh, and I don't have to worry about remembering if it is NT or suit contract.

[MFA]

Lavinthal discards.

- Clearly superior in my view. So often you would like to make an attitude statement about a suit without wanting to discard from it.

 

Smith's echo.

- Remember, no breaks of tempo! :)

[barmar]

Whatever your agreements, stick with them unless you're absolutely sure that confusing partner won't hurt. My regular partner and I agree to lead low from xxx against suits. But every now and then he'll lead top of nothing, because he doesn't want to mislead me that he's leading from an honor. But of course I assume this is a doubleton lead, and start planning the entire defense on this assumption.

[effervesce]

Has anybody here had experience with prism signals?

 

Prism signals are where your discarding/play when the opps play off trumps indicate the parity of your hand, whether your hand is 'odd' or 'even' and which is the 'parity suit' of your hand (eg if you have 4432 the 3 is the parity suit, if 5332 then 5 is the parity suit where the parity suit is different in odd/even from the other suits). This is useful as all four bridge hands are related-if your hand has a certain parity, and you can see dummy's, and your partner tells you his, you can work out declarer's parity (eg work out that declarer has an odd parity with the parity suit as diamonds-if he is in 6D, possible hand shapes include 4270, 4252, etc or whatever which you can deduce from the bidding and play).

 

It does seem to require thinking on every hand though-maybe that's a good thing as it'll get u thinking about declarer's hand and after a while you get used to working out your hand's parity, telling partner about it, and from partner's signalling working out your partner's hand parity and declarer's. But does anybody have any practicall experience with prism signals??

[1eyedjack]

Used to play prism echo in trumps (Vinje trump signal we called it). Gives a lot of information to declarer before you can judge which is the higher priority between signalling to partner and concealment. And you give up on Smith echo, which is a big downer. And if you would normally give count signals and the second suit you give count happens to have equal parity with the first then you have effectively given a prism signal anyway.

 

In summary, I used to like it, but don't miss it. Would not object to playing it with an insistent partner.

[Free]

Here's what I like:

 

Leads: always 1st/3rd(/5th) lead, also with honours ("flexible" in NT). This includes coded 9's and T's. I like this approach since partner is usually in a better position to make a good decision when you lead your 3rd highest card from a suit. It also enables you to lead from a 3 card suit in NT, which is pretty often a good idea. It might be too revealing for declarer, but declarer play is easier than defense in the first place, so I prefer to let my partner in on the secrets of the hand at the cost of letting declarer know as well.

By "flexible in NT" I mean you sometimes will lead your 4th highest. This is done when leading a 4 card suit and the 3rd card is too high to just sacrifice (example AJ82).

 

Special leads:

- A/Q against NT asks for attitude

- K against NT asks for unblock or count

- A against a trump contract asks attitude

- K against a trump contract asks for count (with a few exceptions, like when it's clear you lead from doubleton).

 

Carding: UDCA definitely! It just saves your high intermediates.

 

Discarding: I prefer either O/E, UDCA or count. I'm not really sure what I like the most:

- O/E is easy to show partner what you want, usually you don't even need to break up your suit if you don't want to, but if you can afford it you can make a very clear signal.

- UDCA is easy if you can break up your suit, otherwise you need 2 discards to show what suit your really want.

- count makes it easy to count the hand, you can usually make a good decision what suit to play, and you can play pretty much double dummy (but declarer can do the same).

 

Ofcourse there are a lot of situations where you can give Lavinthal signals while following suit, so all these (dis)carding methods are quite flexible.

[dcvetkov]

Hi

 

There is very good book on signalling by Danny Roth, I think its called Signalling Success in bridge, I suggest you give it a try. It explains all common and uncommon signalling, pros and cons , plus some unusual signals, Alarm Clock, Christmas wish, etc.. which apply in specific situation.

 

At the end , its what you are comfortable with that wins, you and your partner both

 

I think there is also more recent book by Julian Pottage

 

Cheers