NT discards

[straube]

I don't know the name for our discards, but our first discard against a notrump contract encourages with odd and discourages with even. Even discards encourage the lower adjacent suit if the discard is a low card and vice versa. The 6 is neutral.

 

I hate this. I'm always hopeful of having a 6 because very often I don't feel like encouraging any suit. I infrequently discard an odd card because that's like throwing away a potential winner in a suit I want lead. Plus I feel like I'm using mental energy figuring out the best discard when I could be spending it on other aspects of the defense. Partner really likes these discards and thinks it's easy to find one discard.

 

What do others think? Anyone played this or something like it?

[SteveMoe]

Odd Even or Roman discards.

 

Somewhat popular here because it usually locates target honors in time to harvest them. Fails when you have the wrong parity for the signal you want. I prefer UDCA SIGNALS [following COPA - Count when Opponents lead and Attitude when partner leads. Second discard is then Count (after attitude - though we are seriously thinking to use Suit Preference instead) and Suit preference after count].

 

http://www.bridgehands.com/O/Odd-Even_Discard.htm

[mycroft]

I like Odd-Even discards, when I can trust the opponents to know what they are doing. They so rarely lie.

[ArtK78]

I have played odd-even first discards (against both suit contracts and NT contracts) for years. They are great. Usually, odd-even first discard gives you some flexibility in the choice of your discard.

 

I (almost) never worry about giving information to the declarer. Partner needs the information more.

 

I don't know where you came up with the 6 being neutral. The relative rank of the even card played is determined in the context of the hand.

 

I play UDCA at all other times.

[Cyberyeti]

The problem with them is that tempo tends to vary when you don't have the card you want.

[akwoo]

1) Just as a reminder - in the ACBL, odd/even is only allowed on the first discard. Pervasive o/e signals is NOT allowed.

 

2) Assuming you and your partner have enough brainpower to figure it out, it is definitely better to play "high" or "low" as "figure out what even cards I could have and use that to determine whether I have discarded a high or low one." So if you have the T85, you discard the 8 as a "low" even card, and if you have the 542, you discard the 4 as a "high" even card. Most of the time, when you are discarding the 8 from T85, partner will have the 6, and the 4 will be in dummy, and declarer played the 2 from hand on the first trick, so your partner will figure out that 8 is low.

 

3) In general, even discards should be treated as weaker signals than odd discards. And in no case should partner's discard be a substitute for sound judgement coming from counting the hand, taking inference from the bidding, et c. (In other words, if partner can't have more than 2 hcp from the bidding and signals for a diamond when neither you nor the dummy have any diamond honors, it actually tells you not to lead diamonds.)

[ggwhiz]

I hate this.

 

This method is a bit of work but so is everything else and this one works well with less stress and less work. Or you could not bother to play signals or work at the game at all. GL finding a partner if that's the case.

[Vampyr]

3) In general, even discards should be treated as weaker signals than odd discards.

 

Yes, but sometimes you will have to discard a high odd card and hope partner reads it and realises it is not encouraging.