[inquiry]

Partner discarded the ♠J on the second round of clubs. You play that ♠Jack as "I got spades" covered. You gave "standard count" on first round of clubs. It is safe to assume that declarer has only one top spade trick thanks to the spade discard.

Discuss your carding as declarer wins his top tricks. He will first take four clubs. If you preferred to give a different count signal on clubs, pretend you played the club you wanted. In other words, what are you going to try to show partner about your hand, and how do you plan to show it?

---

[Fluffy]

Spoiler

Since we don't have to pitch, there is one suit we want partner to throw away. So he can keep the rest, this should be our main objective right now.

[StevenG]

I find this one extremely difficult. (The play 7♠ questions are all well within my comfort zone.) I'll admit that I don't really know how to defend my hand in isolation. In practice, I've never had a partnership where my partner would both be good enough at defence to know how to defend (assuming he needs to know what I've got, so it's not routine) AND interested enough in carding for us to have detailed agreements about how to show what is needed.

Maybe if I'd ever been in a partnership that was capable of defending this sort of hand, I would have developed the skills to visualize what I need my partner to have. But, in my world, that sort of partnership isn't a realistic proposition. (And I should say that I've had partnerships with players who can win county competitions, or have played in the Corwen (EBU people will know what I mean), so I'm not talking about playing with beginners.)

[shyams]

I expect declarer to play 4 rounds of clubs followed by 4 rounds of diamonds.

In the five card ending, we need to ensure that

Spoiler

... partner holds on to 4 hearts and the bare ♠K.

It's how we go about convincing partner which is tricky. StevenG's post is spot on -- my partner and I would not have discussed detailed agreements for such situations.

[kenberg]

It seems to me that the key play has already been made. On the play of the eighth minor suit card partner, we agree, has a problem. By that time he will have seen that I had other clubs besides the 9 when I played it. Why else would I play the 0 except to help him out by showing spade values? So he can blank his King. Maybe he figures this out, maybe he doesn't, but the club 9 should help him if he is up for this. If he isn't, well. I'm not perfect either.

Of course I could have played the 9 at T3 instead of T4, but I don't see that it really matters.

When declarer plays diamonds I am also playing the 8 before the 5. Partner will quickly see that count counts for nothing here and he should ask himself what I am doing. If he does, I think he will get it.It does not, in this case, seem to me to be a matter of prior discussion. Either partner asks himself "Why the ♣ 9?" or he doesn't. There really can be only one answer (unless, like Meckwell, they are playing ud suit preference, a weird convention).

[inquiry]

We have clearly hit on an area where very good forum members need to work with their partners on agreements. This suggest maybe an extensive thread on carding agreements should be introduced. Fluffy framed the problem succinctly in without stating the exact problem. There is no doubt he has an approach to get it right. Shymas went further, he clearly identified the problem and although he stated exactly the problem, he didn't have any agreements to help partner. Kenberg was right on target with the short answer to the problem (unless you are meckwell who play inverted suit preference, so you have to reverse the suggested carding).

You know for a fact that declarer has the ♥Ace (if for no other reason than partner didn't cash it at trick one) and you can see the ♥K in dummy. Since you have only two hearts, only your partner can guard against declarer winning three or four heart tricks. All the while he is going to hold onto the ♠King he so proudly showed you. However, you can protect against long spades with your spade queen.

So what the information you need to convey it that YOU guard spades and partner should throw his spades away, keeping only the ♠King.

---

Having identified the problem, you might typical discard an encouraging spade yourself in response to partners discard. Luckily if you play odd-even discards you might get a chance on this hand to discard the five spades. Obviously on this hand you are not getting a discard anytime soon (although on the fourth diamond you can discard the ♠5 but that might come after partner has had to make his discard from something like ♠Kx ♥T9xx in the six card ending (declarer playing low diamond towards dummy). Thus that would be too late to help him even if you played odd even discards... On this hand it turns out you will get a chance to discard the ♠5 "in time" since partner has the ♥J, but it might be not be convincing enough. Also, there will be hand types where you will hold ♠QT4 and not have a helpful odd spade to discard even if you could (and again, if declarer had the ♥AJx the discard will be too late to protect partner).

So as Fluffy pointed out, "Since we don't have to pitch, there is one suit we want partner to throw away. So he can keep the rest, this should be our main objective right now."

Let's assume you play straight forward standard "count signals" in a suit, followed by suit preference. This way, after giving count in clubs to trick two, you would play clubs from top down 9-7. You could have played your remaining four clubs (9754) in any order. There has to be a sequence to show something in each of the other three suits, and some sequence of plays that show nothing (partner is on his own). With 9754, one reasonable approach is to use:
4-5 as nothing to show
5-7 to show something in diamonds
7-low to show something in hearts
9-low to show something in spades
9-7 to shout about spades
7-9 to shout about hearts

Other approaches exist and any logical agreement about how you play your carding is key to good defense. I have a number of cooperative defensive hands that could be posted if there is interest. It is not unusual to see hands like this where one partner tells another that he has a suit stopped where really, his partner should be the one guarding that suit. If you don't have it stopped, you can pretty much go about your merry way and not worry about it. However, there is no earthly reason for East to signal spades, much less strongly signal spades on hands like this unless he wants his partner to give up the guard he already promised.

And the great thing about this kind of carding, it is not rocket science. A few minutes discussing it with your regular partner and you will have it down. If you play with someone likely fluffy even as a pick up partner, you can assume he would understand you signals if you start throwing your high clubs after the initial signal.

[kenberg]

In a hand such as this, I think knowing that the high club shows spade values is enough to take care of the situation when E has xx in spades and QJx in hearts. West sees small coub He reasons: Clearly partner knows my problem. Can I blank my K. Surely my wonderfully alert partner would play the most gigantic club spot he has if he had the ♠ Q. He hhas not done that, so I cannot blank my Q, we will hope for the best in hearts.

I think this all follows logically,. That doesn't mean that it will always be done properly at the table but a partnership, with conversation and understanding, can head in that direction.

Suppose E has xx in spades and only Qxx in hearts. If partner has (started with) the Jxxx of hearts then on the eighth minor suit partner can come down to Kx and Jxx. As long as I have not signaled help in spades, I think he should see this as a "no choice" choice.

If I have xx in spades, Qxx in hearts, and declarer holds the AJx of hearts we are not beating this. Actually we probably ar not beating it if declaer has AJ tight since he can finesse early on and the squeeze W in hearts and spades.



A comment, maybe an eccentricity. I am not fond of o/e discards and this hand is an indicator of why. I have to hope I get a chance to discard a spade, I have to hope that, if I do get to discard, that I have an odd spade. If I have two even spades I have to hope that partner understands that when I only have two, both even, the higher one (if agreed) is my best shot as encouraging. The ♣ 9, with a decent pick up partner playing undiscussed but presumably standard carding, could hardly be anything other than spade values. I know o/e is popular, but not with me.Of course here, even if we are lpaying o/e, he can probably work out that after he has shown out of clubs the 9 is not intended as encouragement to lead one.