THE RIGHT ATTITUDE

"As I've said before," said Spock, "killing partner is not necessary or helpful. And it ruins the baize..."

"But, but, but.. " said the very large Klingon, dropping his partner, "Twice he didn't continue the suit he led at trick one. We coulda had them down twice. That is not acceptable on my planet. He needs to know my attitude to failure, know what I'm saying?"

"I think he'd rather know your attitude to the suit led, wouldn't he?"

"Huh? Are you implying it's all my fault?"

"Yes that's right I am indeed. You could have an agreement that the card played by opening leader's partner, when not forced to play high, can be an ATTITUDE signal. ie whether or not you want partner to continue that suit when they can. Say partner leads QS against 3NT and you hold 109653 in the suit. If Dummy (or Declarer)  wins the trick, now your card can be attitude showing. The 9 will encourage partner to continue the suit later, and the 3 will be discouraging. Now partner knows what to do. Simple huh?"

"Hmm maybe. But what if you only have one valuable high card to play to encourage with? That's a problem, no?"

"It is indeed. Very well spotted. This is why a lot of players actually play what's called REVERSE ATTITUDE. ie a LOW  card is encouraging, the high one discouraging (Hi hate, Lo like...) In the previous example the 3 would be encouraging. You will of course have to watch every single card partner plays, now won't you? Working out what Declarer has; where's their weakness? In fact, do this anyway: all the time. Otherwise you're only playing half the game."

COUNT YOURSELF LUCKY

I don't see" said Dag the Romulan, "what difference it makes knowing how many of a suit your partner holds. I want to know where their Aces are!"

Spock chuckled to himself. "But what if partner holds no Aces?"

"Then I wanna know about Kings, Queens, whatever. It's all about the big cards anyway."

"Not at all!" countered Spock firmly. "On the contrary there are a lot of situations where you need to know how many of a suit partner has, simply so you can work out how many cards DECLARER has in a particular suit. Think about it. You're defending a slam and at trick 12, you have so far won one trick and need another one to defeat the contract. You now hold  QD and QH, both of which you know to be winners. Declarer leads a Club. Which Queen do you discard? Is it a guess? Do you toss a coin? Is one suit prettier than the other? How on earth can we know?"

"It's always a guess in those situations," said the Romulan. "50 - 50."

"No, " said Spock, "In fact if you play properly with your partner it is NEVER a guess. Why? Because partner should show you the length in each of their suits so it is known to you exactly what Declarer's distribution is, so you know exactly which Q to keep and so defeat the contract. Letting slams slide through is always a disaster."

"How can partner tell me all that without kickin' me under the table? That's ridiculous."

"Very simply. When you follow suit, both of you should always play a High card followed by a Low card to show an even number in a suit. This is called a Peter. Now if you know partner has 2 or 4 in a particular suit, you can see how many you and dummy hold so you can soon tell how many Declarer is likely to hold by subtracting that number from 13."

"What if they hold an Odd number - 3 or 5, say?"

"Then you don't Peter. You play the cards from Low to High instead."

It's a good idea to train yourself to do this all the time - in every suit. So it naturally becomes a habit to count out Declarer's shape. Then you'll never have to guess again which Q to keep!

ENTERPRISE ATTACK

Three weeks out from Arcturus V, Spock was mentoring the Enterprise Team for the Intergalactic Pairs Championships. His message was simple:

"Let us not think of defence: let us think of attack. Attack is the best form of defence.  In any battle in military history the side with greater teamwork will triumph. You must work together with partner - not alone in magnificent but ultimately doomed isolation.

When we lose an auction one of the opponents becomes Declarer. We must not then subside into a world of dreary defence. We must, in concert with partner, ATTACK the declarer. We have one small advantage. We only have to take care of our own hand; Declarer has to work simultaneously with both his side's hands."

" 'Ang on, 'ang on, 'ang on," interrupted a cockney character who only appears in the background of Episode 6 (Mudd's Women)  " 'Ow come, guvnor, it's easier for us who can only see one 'and? I'd ravver see two anyday, know what I mean?"

"But you can see two hands. You have the advantage that you can see one of the Declaring sides hands. The declarer, on the other hand, can see neither of your defensive - sorry, attacking - hands. Therefore you and your partner can communicate in subtle underhand ways. You can pass information, like secret policemen, about what you hold in each suit so you may thwart Declarer."

"I s'pose, " chirped the cockney, "that'd be the Thwart Police, eh?"

"An interesting example of Earth humour. However, my intention is to enlighten you on the Three Paths of Signalling. And these three Paths are: Count: Attitude and Suit Preference. With these three weapons we can wreak havoc against the citadel of The Contract.

That's all for now. I shall be taking a break in the Holo-Deck, but on my return I will endeavour to show you how to walk the Three Paths of Signalling.

Live Long and Prosper!"

Defensive Signalling – The Suit Preference Signal - 9 September 2010

Hope you all had a great summer and good to see you all again after the holidays. OK now you’re back let’s get going…

Suit Preference

When you defend you must not sit there following suit when you have to while wondering about the price of steam cleaners. You have to DO something! You have to think. But what? Sometimes the great god of bridge will gift you the high cards to defeat the opponents iffy contract. Other times you may have between you and partner the right cards to get the contract down but too too often neither of you realise what is going on until it’s over. It’d be great if you could look at partner’s hand – or partner could see your hand – then you’d both know exactly what to do. Sadly the rules of bridge forbid this. But the rules of bridge do allow you to SIGNAL to partner in various ways your holdings in particular suits. Armed with this vital knowledge you help each other.

Take this frequent situation:

dummy
Kxxx
x
AQxx .............. you
KJ10x ............. xx
....................... Q952
....................... KJxx
....................... Qxx


The contract is 4 Spades and partner leads the Ace of Hearts. What card do you play and why? Let’s re-phrase the question slightly. What card do you want PARTNER to play next? After the HA, partner has a problem. What to lead next? Not really knowing what’s going on partner has a complete guess whether or not to lead: 1) another heart, 2) a spade 3) a diamond or 4) a club.

In this situation, remember the suit rankings. The lowest ranking suit is Clubs, then Diamonds, Hearts and Spades in that (alphabetical) order. You can use this knowledge as part of a system to communicate your like or dislike of a lead of a particular suit.

In the example above you would quite like it if partner led a diamond. Partner could lead another heart, which would be ruffed in dummy, or even lead a spade. The one thing you really really don’t want partner to do is lead a club. If they do, dummy plays the jack, you must cover with the queen and of course declarer has the ace and now no club losers. But how – logically – can you dissuade partner from the disastrous club lead at Trick 2?

Remember the suit rankings? Clubs is the LOWEST ranking suit so – logically – the LOWEST card you play would ASK for a club lead. So DON’T play your lowest heart. Instead, under the lead of the ace of hearts drop the NINE of hearts, asking for the HIGHER ranking suit between diamonds and clubs. Easy when you know how, isn’t it!

Of course, this means when you are the one on lead with the Ace of Hearts you’d better watch out what card partner plays, hadn’t you?


Making A Plan

You are declarer. The lead is faced. The dummy goes down. The bids are back in the boxes. Now what? No, no, no the answer is not “PANIC!” The answer is: make a plan. Think. Take your time. How many tricks do you need? Where are they coming from? How many losers have you got? How are you going to get rid of them? It doesn’t matter how hopeless or how marvellous the contract is – the aim is the same. To do your absolute best with cards you and your partner were dealt. So remember

NO PLAN - NO CHANCE!

See you next week!
Kit

More On Defence – The Count Signal – 3 March 2010

The defenders, as well as being able to tell partner their attitude to the suit led or which of the other suits they like, can also so tell each other how many cards of a particular suit they hold. When you add that up with the cards in dummy and your own hand you can tell exactly how many cards in a suit declarer has. THIS INFORMATION IS GOLD DUST.

The classic example is:

• Dummy holds KQJxx of a suit and you hold Axx of the same suit. There are no other entries to the table for declarer to enjoy and they need four tricks from the suit to make their contract. When do you take the ace?
  
  Obviously that all depends on how many of the suit declarer holds. If they have two, you take the ace on the second round and the suit is isolated for ever. If declarer, however has three of them, you have to wait until the third round of the suit before cracking down the ace. But which is it? Is there a law of guesswork involved. When’s Shrove Tuesday? Have you got enough onions? You could always peer round declarer’s hand and have a look at it but, oddly, this is not encouraged. Or legal.
  
  So let’s see how it’s done without guessing. You can see eight cards of the suit (5+3) so there are five left between partner and declarer (13-8 = 5). These cards will split 5 - 0, 4 - 1 or 3 - 2. If declarer has 4 or 5 of them there is nothing you can do. If declarer has 0 or 1, then again you can’t get it wrong. So the 3 - 2 split is the key one. Does declarer have 3 or 2? You could always ask, but all my years of experience have led me to believe you will NEVER get an answer. Other than a pithy rude one. Luckily, none of this matters as the answer is that you don’t need to ask declarer as your partner will tell you. Your partner – loving, kind, beautiful, considerate partner – will be giving you the count of their suits on every card declarer plays, no matter whether or not they have any idea if this information will be useful to you or not. You will, naturally in response to partner’s beneficence be doing exactly the same thing so that they can work out what to keep, what to chuck, what to duck, what to play. Aha yes. But HOW?
  
  The answer is monumentally simple. If, when declarer plays a suit where partner cannot win the trick, and partner holds an ODD number of cards in that suit they will start with a LOW card and then play a HIGH card. If they have an EVEN number they will play a HIGH card, then a LOW card. SO....
  
  1) Declarer plays a card from his hand to dummy and partner plays the 2. This instantly telles you that partner has one, three or five cards in the suit. Declarer has one so it’s one or three. Declarer returns to hand and plays a second card of the suit on which partner plays the 7. Declarer has now played two cards, partner has played two cards but has indicated three! So now you can take your Ace secure in the knowledge that declarer has no more of the suit as they only had two, and when declarer regains the lead, they will not be able to access the remaining cards in dummy.
  
  2) Declarer plays a card from his hand to dummy and partner plays the 9. They have one, two or four cards in the suit. Declarer returns to hand and plays a second card of the suit on which partner plays the 5. Now you must NOT take your Ace. Partner has an even number of the suit: two or four. It cannot be four as declarer has a second one (i.e. the suit is not 4 - 1). Therefore declarer has 3! If you take your Ace declarer will be able to get to the now unisolated suit and play off all the established winners, making a contract that should have gone down. So you simply wait until declarer plays the third card in the suit and take that. And then on the 3rd round of the suit partner gives you a Suit Preference signal and you know what to lead back!!! (You know you do…)

This is why you should give count signals all the time. You have no idea – initially – what partner has. Nor they what you have. So tell each other. Work together. All the time. Every card. Until it is utterly second nature to count partner’s hand and at the same time declarer’s hand.

This is the key to playing well. Even if you don’t fully count the hands, then try to spot the key suit or suits and just count them.

“Hi - Lo Even Carding, every time you play now baby,
I see your cards are telling everything I need…
…So it’s obvious.”

Sung to the chorus of this ditty…

http://www.last.fm/music/Jeff%20Beck/_/Hi%20Ho%20Silver%20Lining?ac=silver%20lining

Kit

“It’s a Thinking Game”: Good Defence Starts Before Trick 1 - 13 Nov 2009

Defence is the hardest part of the game. You sit silently through the opponent’s auction, pausing only occasionally to drop a green PASS card on the table. Your mind wanders, you start thinking about whether Toilet Duck is harmful to the environment and then proceed to put cards down on the table, following suit when you remember, as declarer racks up 11 tricks in 3NT. Then, partner has to go and spoil it all by asking you why you didn’t return a heart at trick 5? Flummoxed, you shrug and deal the next hand quickly.

This is a problem. What can you do about it?

1) Listen to the bidding carefully. If the person on your right bids two suits - say hearts and clubs - this probably shows at least 5-4 in those two suits. That means this player has another four cards in the other two suits, distributed 2-2, 3-1 or 4-0. Your job is to watch partner’s discards so you get some idea of how those cards lie, and ALSO to tell your partner your distribution so partner can also work out what’s happening.

2) Listen to the bidding carefully. If the person on your right rebids a 1NT at any stage (or 2NT or 3NT) then you and your partner know pretty exactly how many points that person has. As declarer plays high cards, mentally add up how many of these points have been shown or implied.

3) When dummy goes down - stop. Think. Plan. Count dummy’s points. Does the hand match the bidding? Does declarer look smug or scared? Add dummy’s points to your points, add in declarer’s “probable” points, subtract from 40 and the answer is how many points your partner has.

4) When dummy goes down - stop. Think. Plan. What is partner’s lead? Singleton? Doubleton? Top of a sequence? 4th best from an honour? Middle of 3 small? What is partner trying to do? How can you help? Do you need to find a new partner rapidly?

OK, so that’s trick 1. Next week all the other 12 tricks! Then we can start to look at Count, Attitude, Discards and Suit Preference Signals. I promise you, youll never have time to think about Toilet Duck again …