DEFENSIVE CARDING
By
Larry Matheny
Defending a bridge contract
is often difficult but it is much easier when you and your partner are
communicating. For this to happen, you
must agree on the meaning of each card you play and that isn’t easy. Let’s start with some carding methods to
improve your defense.
When following to a trick
or discarding, there are three basic signals you can give your partner: attitude,
count, and suit preference.
In today’s session I will give a brief overview of each of these along
with examples.
There is a general rule
that states: “When partner leads you give attitude and when declarer leads you
give count”. This is not always true but
is a good guideline. Let’s start with
the first message you want to send to your partner.
ATTITUDE
The most common carding
method is for a high card to encourage while a low one discourages. Some players reverse this but for today’s
session we will encourage with high-low.
Here is an example that clearly demonstrates that method.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
North-South are in 6
and West leads the queen of hearts.
South ducks and East should encourage with the nine. This is a very obvious case of attitude. (It also shows North should bid 6NT to guard
his heart king from the opening lead but that’s not today message.)
Now, while you may think
that is automatic, let’s change to this layout:
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
North-South are now in 4
and West leads the queen of hearts. If
East will just stop and analyze the hand he will see that a club shift at trick
two may be the only way to defeat this contract. Accordingly, he follows to the first trick
with the deuce. That should wake
up West who sees that any diamond loser isn’t going away but a club trick
might. Therefore he switches to a low
club. After winning two club tricks,
East cashes the ace of heart for down one.
Note that if a heart is continued at trick two, declarer will discard a
club on the fourth diamond and wrap up his game.
Here is another example of
attitude that occurs frequently but is often overlooked:
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
North-South reached the
contract of 4
and West leads the queen of hearts.
Looking at the problem from East’s point of view, he does NOT want West
to shift to another suit. To send this
message he follows with the seven of hearts to trick one. If he played the three, when West regained
the lead he might shift to one of the other suits and allow declarer to
succeed. East will follow to the second heart
with the nine so his partner will not read him for a doubleton.
Point to remember: THE CARD YOU
PLAY TO PARTNER’S LEAD DOESN’T NECESSARILY PROMISE OR DENY A CERTAIN HOLDING IN
THAT SUIT; RATHER IT SHOWS ATTITUDE ON WHETHER IT SHOULD BE CONTINUED. TO PLAY A LOW CARD STRONGLY SUGGESTS YOU CAN
STAND A SHIFT TO ANOTHER SUIT.
Here’s an opportunity to
show attitude in a side suit:
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
West leads the jack of
spades against South’s 3NT. East follows
with the deuce to show no interest in the suit.
Declarer will attack diamonds or clubs and on the third round of either
suit, East should discard the nine of hearts.
This high spot asks West to shift to a heart when given the
opportunity. It’s also important to
point out that a low heart would deny interest in that suit.
COUNT
It also helps to be able to
tell partner how many cards you hold in a suit.
The standard way to show count is to hi-low with an even number and play
low-high with an odd number.
Here are some rules when
giving count:
-
When possible play your
second highest card to show an even number (9643).
-
When following to
partner’s opening lead of an ace (from ace-king), to encourage, play high from
a doubleton up through the jack. When
holding QX, play small; the play of the queen promises the jack or a
singleton. (An exception will be
discussed in the section on suit-preference.)
-
Don’t give count when
it will help declarer more than your partner.
-
A high-low in the trump
suit shows an odd number.
-
Against a slam, always
give count when partner’s opening lead is an ace or king.
-
Against a suit
contract, when partner leads the ace (from ace-king) and dummy hits with QXX or
JXXX, many players give count. This will
help partner decide if the king will cash.
This should be discussed with your partner(s).
Here is a situation where
count is mandatory.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
South declares 3NT and West
leads the queen of spades. Declarer wins
and leads a club toward dummy. It is
imperative for West to play the deuce on this trick. East will read this for an odd number and win
the second round of clubs to hold South to eight tricks.
Another form of count is
given with the opening lead. Lacking a
sequence of honors, it is customary to lead fourth best against many
contracts. Here’s an example:
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
North-South are in 4
and West with no obvious lead, finally settles on the four of hearts. Declarer wins the ace and leads a spade to
the king and ace. Next, East cashes the
jack of hearts noting that West followed with the deuce. This showed that West started with five
hearts so declarer has none left. East
now shifts to a diamond and the contract is defeated. Again, this may seem very simple but if East
leads a third heart, declarer will ruff, draw trumps, and discard a diamond on
dummy’s fourth club.
Here are two other examples
of giving count after winning the lead.
In each case, West leads his fourth best spade to East’s ace.
954
954
Q10763 A2 Q1073
A62
KJ8 KJ8
East returns the deuce to show two or four. In the second example, East returns the six
to show three (or two).
Those were examples of showing present count. This is a way of showing count after you have
made an attitude signal, opening lead, or followed to a trick. It is important to show present count during
the play of the hand. For example, holding
K8654 and playing the king after partner led the suit, your first discard in
the suit will be the six.
One of the rules is to not give declarer too much information. There are many times where you most certainly
don’t want declarer to know your distribution in a suit and your partner
won’t care if you lie. Take a look at
this suit:
AQ103
J862
97
K54
South plays the ace, king and a low spade toward dummy and I’m sure you
can see that giving count in this situation isn’t going to help you at all but
declarer may like it. Of course, if
declarer knows you are a “less than truthful person”, you should vary your
play.
SUIT PREFERENCE
Attitude and count are
usually straightforward but now we get into an area that is not so clear. For example, some partnerships use
suit-preference when dummy hits with a singleton in the suit led. However, it is possible the best defense is a
continuation of that suit forcing dummy to ruff. In this case, a high card should ask for the
suit to be continued.
Here are some guiding
principles[1]:
-WHEN PARTNER CANNOT
POSSIBLY BE INTERESTED IN YOUR COUNT OR ATTITUDE, FOLLOW SUIT WITH EITHER A LOW
CARD OR A HIGH CARD TO INDICATE WHICH SUIT YOU WOULD LIKE YOUR PARTNER TO PLAY.
-A DEFENDER CAN GIVE A
SUIT-PREFERENCE SIGNAL IN A SUIT HE HAS LED WHEN THE DEFENSE IS CASHING TRICKS
IN THAT SUIT AND COUNT IS NOT IMPORTANT.
-WHEN YOUR LENGTH IN A SUIT
IS KNOWN OR CAN BE OF NO INTEREST TO PARTNER, IT IS SENSIBLE TO USE YOUR CARDS
TO GIVE A SUIT-PREFERENCE SIGNAL.
Now let’s look at some
examples:
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||
The contract is 3NT and West
leads the five of hearts. Declarer ducks
the king and jack and then wins the ace.
On the third round of hearts, West should follow with the queen. This shows an entry in the higher suit. Without this information after gaining the
lead with the king of diamonds, East would have to guess whether to lead a
spade or a club.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
After this spirited auction,
West leads a high diamond. It’s clear to
East that a heart shift is imperative, so he plays the queen of diamonds
(unusually high card) to ask West to shift to a heart. Switch East’s round suit holdings and he
would follow with the deuce of diamonds.
As you can see, without the heart shift at trick two, declarer will draw
trumps and discard two losing hearts on the clubs.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
West obediently leads his
partner’s suit and East’s normal play is the queen denying the jack. But here he wants to send his partner a
signal so he wins with the ace. This
play usually denies the king so when he continues with the king at trick two,
West understands that his partner has a preference for hearts, the higher side
suit. (Think: top-down=higher suit;
bottom up=lower suit.)
After winning the spade ace,
West leads a heart through dummy and the contract is defeated. If East-West were not using suit-preference
signals and East had routinely played the queen of diamonds at trick one
followed by another honor, poor West would have had to guess which suit to lead
when he regained the lead.
Scoring: Matchpoints
(Pairs)
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
After the lead of an ace (from ace-king), when dummy hits with either
QXX or JXXX it is customary for East to show count. As stated earlier, this helps West decide if
his king is going to cash. Here East
drops the jack (an unnecessary high card) to show a preference for a heart
shift. Since the auction tells West this
can’t be a doubleton, he shifts to a heart at trick two. You can see declarer will be defeated in this
contract unless West panics and shifts to a club. You will also note that East cannot make a
suit-preference play for clubs because it would be read as count. The UNUSUAL high card (the jack) changes this
from count to suit-preference.
SUMMARY
In this session I have demonstrated the standard methods of sending
three different types of messages. As is
usually the case, there are variations on these methods. I mentioned earlier that some players reverse
the manner in which they give information; this is known as UPSIDE-DOWN
signaling and is quite popular. There is
also ODD-EVEN carding and LAVINTHAL carding.
Some partnerships use a SMITH ECHO to indicate if they liked the opening
lead and others hi-low in the trump suit to show suit-preference rather than
count. If nothing else, I want to you
leave this lesson with the realization that you must use some form of carding
if you want to be a good defender.
I’m sure that has been a lot for some of you to absorb so please feel
free to ask questions. And please
remember, you’re on defense approximately half of the time, so you must work at
it.