[pirate22]

not to steal this article,my question is much simpler,so will raise my question under bridge systems.
carding.at a lower but effective level

[inquiry]

Mike's carding is ideal on this hand, as was his analysis of the hand. Partner held Jxxx of diamonds and Txxx of clubs, and has to figure out which one to keep. But the possibility of a two way finesse in diamonds is still alive.

I am surprised no one suggested that they give count at trick one. I was interested in the followup they would have used. Perhaps they will play Smith Echo on hearts, for instance, or used S/P to suggest spade return (just as if smith echo).

I have gotten into using a S/P (similar to smith echo, but not exactly the same as can signal for other suits) on the first suit declarer leads, but with an exception. If I have already signaled encouragement (which like mike says makes it unnecessary). In this case, I have switched to the signal on first suit declarer plays as substitute count in the "key suit". Often this will be the long suit in dummy if dummy is short of entries, other times it is in the suit partner lead (for cash out situation). So for me, I would have given "remaining count" in spades on the first round of hearts. That leave me free to to give a signal in spades on 2nd round of spades, and like mike I would play a non-low spade followed later by a low spade to deny interest in clubs. I have been toying with Vinje signals by the a broke partner but that probably falls into an encrypted signal category as the key (both partners know one partner is broke) is a key not available to declarer. It would apply to this hand anyway.

Fluffy raised some interesting question about encouraging (or s/p) signals being a demand or suggestion. I suspect we can find many hands were one or the other of those would be preferred choice. For me, my signals seem always to be just suggestions based upon experience with partners who ignore them at a very high frequency.

[gnasher]

inquiry, on 2011-September-25, 10:07, said:

Mike's carding is ideal on this hand

What was wrong with my carding? At trick one I suggested that I would be the one to keep three diamonds, and at trick three partner said "OK". Then we sat back and waited for declarer to go down.

[inquiry]

gnasher, on 2011-September-25, 16:46, said:

What was wrong with my carding? At trick one I suggested that I would be the one to keep three diamonds, and at trick three partner said "OK". Then we sat back and waited for declarer to go down.

You threw away a club from Jx. This allows declarer -- if he wants too -- to pick up your partner's Txxx by cashing the club ACE (or queen), then play a low club to the nine. True, he MIGHT not find that play, but you have at least made it possible. Therefore, your play can't be called perfect.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Ben asked about COUNT at trick 1.

Lorne Russell ( MGR at AOL ) always advocated count, count, and more count against slams, especially NT.

And when partner shows the ♥Ace and you have a Q and 2 Jacks, there isn't any room for him to hold a friendly ♦J .

Our only hope is that he has at least 4 cards ♣ headed by the 10 .

And from the Sp plays, you have to realize a Sp trick is not in the offing.

Sooo, hang onto your 3d/2c at all costs-- discarding Sp.

On the run of the ♥, is when you can play hi-lo on the 2nd and 3rd Ht to show something in ♦.
Hopefully, it is not too late to be sure that he hangs on to his 10-4th in ♣.
- - - - - - - - -
Side note on Count.
All hands contain either 3 odd/ 1 even or 1 odd/ 3 even distribution.
So when you have played the lowest Sp and Ht on the early tricks, partner will know you started with 3 odd/1 even... and later from your Sp plays he will hope that you started with 5 3 3 2 .
If you were 5 3 4 1, and the ♣ J falls on the 1st round, there is no chance as Declarer can pick up 4 Cl tricks to make 12.

[gnasher]

inquiry, on 2011-September-25, 18:22, said:

You threw away a club from Jx. This allows declarer -- if he wants too -- to pick up your partner's Txxx by cashing the club ACE (or queen), then play a low club to the nine. True, he MIGHT not find that play, but you have at least made it possible. Therefore, your play can't be called perfect.

No, I didn't. When I took over from you at trick five, after you'd played four incorrect cards already, I did the the best I could by throwing away a club.

When I was defending from trick one, I started by playing a highish spade to say that I had three diamonds and planned to hold onto them. Then partner played back the lower of his spades to say that he agreed with me. Then declarer went down.

[jmcw]

mikeh, on 2011-September-23, 16:28, said:

I read manfield's classic BW article about the idle 5th many years ago, and recognize that the often reflexive first discard from a 5 card suit, when declarer is known not to have 5+ length, can be fatal to the defence, but this seems to me to be a clear situation in which partner ought to pitch a club from 10xxxx on the 3rd round of hearts, and that his failure to do so makes declarer with 2=4=3=4 shape, partner being 3=2=4=4.

I would have encouraged spades at trick one, given count in hearts at tricks 2 and 4, and remaining count in spades trick 3. I enjoy playing against count givers a great deal, but I think on a hand like this, where the opps have had an uninformative auction and have power, it behooves the defenders to clarify shape (of declarer) asap.

By the time I have to make my first pitch, we need to make sure partner protects clubs.

I think that we have to signal that we have nothing in clubs and the way to do that, it seems to me, is to play the spade 9 on the 4th heart.

I am probably getting too subtle here.....we're not trying to say we have diamonds controlled....why would we give away the diamond Q? Why would declarer think we were? We are, instead, warning partner that his club length is more important than his diamond length.

This seems about right to me. Nicely done!
The sad fact is that my partners may be tuned to a different channel. The post may serve as a good discussion topic on how we are reading and giving signals.

[awm]

Perhaps an interesting question is.. say we were given the same hand except our diamonds are ♦973 instead of the actual holding.

How do we signal now, and does it matter?

Ideally we could signal our shape in the minors, but most people don't have a way to give count in a suit without playing any card in that suit (I don't think anyone here has really suggested a solution to this). If we are supposed to signal suit preference, what do we do?

It seems to me that we should signal for diamonds, since this potentially gives declarer a losing option (finessing us for the diamond queen on a two-way guess) on a contract that can always be made via a simple squeeze against partner. However, the reasoning here (that we should signal for our xxx suit rather than our Jx suit) is perhaps a bit subtle?

[inquiry]

gnasher, on 2011-September-26, 07:50, said:

No, I didn't. When I took over from you at trick five, after you'd played four incorrect cards already, I did the the best I could by throwing away a club.

When I was defending from trick one, I started by playing a highish spade to say that I had three diamonds and planned to hold onto them. Then partner played back the lower of his spades to say that he agreed with me. Then declarer went down.

Perhaps I missed something in your reply that was hard for me to follow... let's review and you can help me understanding your choice of carding...

Quote

I think I've already made a mess of it, by giving four suit-preference signals for clubs (♠4, ♥2, ♠5 and ♥3).
Partner, having seen the first two of these, then gave suit-preference for diamonds (♠8). This confirmed that he's going to keep three diamonds. If he has something like xxx Ax Jxxx 10xxx, he will play me for Jxxxx xxx Qx QJx.

I guess part of the confusion is your partner lead the ♠8 to trick one. Are you saying that was suit preference for diamonds? Perhaps you mean that when you partner won the ♥A he returned the ♠7 as suit preference for diamonds. IS that the case? Also, here, you suggest the sequence ♠4 then ♥2 then ♠5 then ♥3 is s/p for clubs. Which combination of cards said clubs?

You "stated" what you would have done was (and changing carding was clearly allowed in the original post)

Quote

What I would like to have done is to show mild suit preference for diamonds. That wouldn't guarantee ♦Q, but would say that I have three of them and suggest that I should be keeping them. Partner could then agree with me by playing ♠2, or overrule me by playing ♠8. On this deal, he'll certainly agree to keep clubs, because I can't be 3-3 in the minors.

Here you seem to be on the right track ... and in agreement with Mikeh, show mild preference in diamonds to help partner know to keep clubs.

But note what you didn't do. You did say (specifically) how you would go about this. What should you play at each trick and why. Compare your answer (forgetting for now you answer about throwing away a club) and compare it with Mike's. This comparison still leads me to stand by comment earlier that "Mike's carding is ideal on this hand." I can't say that yours would be ideal, because, you didn't give us your carding.This problem is compounded because you didn't explain the carding even as given (other than you said clubs and parnter said diamonds the way the cards were played). Did s/p for spades ever show up? Did count for spades ever show up?

[gnasher]

If you're saying that Mike's explanation was excellent, I agree.

I also agree that his signalling would work, with a partner on the same wavelength. But so would Manudude's, Phil's, mine, Fluffy's, and several others'.

[Zelandakh]

awm, on 2011-September-26, 21:12, said:

Perhaps an interesting question is.. say we were given the same hand except our diamonds are ♦973 instead of the actual holding.

How do we signal now, and does it matter?

Ideally we could signal our shape in the minors, but most people don't have a way to give count in a suit without playing any card in that suit (I don't think anyone here has really suggested a solution to this). If we are supposed to signal suit preference, what do we do?

It seems to me that we should signal for diamonds, since this potentially gives declarer a losing option (finessing us for the diamond queen on a two-way guess) on a contract that can always be made via a simple squeeze against partner. However, the reasoning here (that we should signal for our xxx suit rather than our Jx suit) is perhaps a bit subtle?

I hinted a little at this in my post. Ben does have a way to give count in another suit and I suggested it would be a nice agreement here. A workable system might be that when count in 2 suits is already known and you have already given suit preference then the subsequent discard is count in the higher of the 2 remaining suits. Obviously this is quite specific so we might loosen it up a little with experience but it does give a starting point that will not interfere with other signals.

[gnasher]

With ♦973 we signal the same way as we would with Q73.

[TWO4BRIDGE]

Zelandakh, on 2011-September-27, 06:15, said:

I hinted a little at this in my post. Ben does have a way to give count in another suit and I suggested it would be a nice agreement here. A workable system might be that when count in 2 suits is already known and you have already given suit preference then the subsequent discard is count in the higher of the 2 remaining suits. Obviously this is quite specific so we might loosen it up a little with experience but it does give a starting point that will not interfere with other signals.

I apparently missed that... but I like it.... giving count in the 3rd suit actually gives count in the 4th as well .
Here you are fortunate to use the discards in declarer's running suit ( ♥ ) to tell your story.
You previously have shown "odd" in ♠ and ♥ .... and when you play lo-hi with your remaining two ♥, it shows "odd" in ♦ ( highest suit of the remaining two )... ergo even in ♣ .

" Count, count... and more count ... against SLAMS " .

[inquiry]

gnasher, on 2011-September-27, 03:06, said:

If you're saying that Mike's explanation was excellent, I agree.

I also agree that his signalling would work, with a partner on the same wavelength. But so would Manudude's, Phil's, mine, Fluffy's, and several others'.

I don't think my opinion of what is ideal should influence too many people one way or the other, but let me try one time to address this comment and my reason for calling mike's ideal.

Manudude03 -- gave dramatic spade signal, which works on this hand, but helps declarer if a two way diamond hook is available.

Jlogic obviously saw both sides of the coin when he pointed out the signal suggested by manudude03 might help declarer, but he never gave us his carding choices, but did give everyone somethings to think about.

Phil was certainly on the right track as well with 832 of hearts (using hearts as suit preference i guess three times. He didn't specifically say that all three cards were preference and what 8=2=3 or 3=2=8 would have meant, just that high middle low was clear diamond signal He added he might reinforce it with the spade jack discard. He didn't discuss what his spade carding would have been (i assume attitude and then original or remaining count)

Zelandakh reply was spot on. Card one - attitude, first heart count, 2nd spade count, 2nd heart S/p -- so presumably he would play a high heart 2nd to signal diamond. That defense would fall in the ideal grouping and was easy to follow. In addition the full sequence of carding was given as requested in the OP, so I should have given that reply an ideal comment as well.

Gnasher described what he would do, but not what sequence of plays in what suit would do it. Did not mention any specific cards he would play to convey his message. So the concept was ideal, the mechanism is unknown.

Fluffy would discourage spades at trick one, this might get a shift from partner when and if he gets in. probably not, but maybe. His trick two was smith echo AFTER discouraging in spades -- i can't understand the need for that and would never take 2nd card as smith echo after denial play in spades at trick one. Trick 3 was spade count, and trick 4 was SP like Zelandakh (except smith echo first in hearts the S/p second in hearts) which is likely to get partner on right track. I can hardly call this "ideal" if for no other reason than Smith echo being used in his sequence of plays. I did very much like the discussion he started about demand versus suggestion.

Everyone can see what carding (or lack thereof) people showed and of course, draw their own conclusions about the effectiveness of the different approaches, or the idealness of them.. For me, ideal carding required a discussion of what cards where played to each trick, and what information those card sent -- if any. Only Mikeh and Zelandakh reply meet my standard for being ideal, sorry i didn;t mention Zelendakh's reply

[Zelandakh]

That is very kind of you to say Ben! I think it is expected that Mike's carding is ideal given the level he plays at. My carding is designed mostly to be clear, simple and suitable for an I/A level. The "count in diamonds using spades" signal would be nice to have at expert level though.

[Fluffy]

Fluffy, on 2011-September-23, 08:36, said:

I apply my standard methods to this:

Trick 1 (spades): Attitude, (discouraging)
Trick 2 (hearts): smith Echo (count if my card was clear enough previous trick)
Trick 3 (spades): count in spades
Trick 4 (hearts): suit preference, even if count wasn't given, since it looks like count will be known cos the suit is gonna be run.

Looks like I wasn't clear enough, I described my usual methods applied to the sequence of tricks in here. But I Didn't mean that I would give smith echo on this hand.