[gnasher]

This is dummy:

Scoring: MP

1♣-1♦
1♥-3♥
4♥

---

West leads ♠Q. East makes an attitude signal that West may not be able to read. South wins ♠A and cashes ♥KQ. East-West play suit preference in the trump suit. What should East's signals mean?

[mikeh]

Jlall, on Aug 11 2008, 08:49 AM, said:

The statement that east made an attitude signal that west may not have been able to read seems leading. If west really may not have been able to read it and they both know this then the trump suit pref should just clarify the SK, but as a default I would just assume partner could read my signal and would then give suit preference about the minors.

agree

[gnasher]

I didn't mean my statement to be leading - that wouldn't be a particularly sensible way to elicit opinions. I meant only that East's card was neither the lowest one not held by dummy nor obviously a high card.

[Edit: The previous version of this post probably seemed rather rude - sorry.]

[gnasher]

Scoring: MP

1♣-1♦
1♥-3♥
4♥

---

South would bid 1♥ any time that he had four of them.

After ♠Q to 8, 6 (upside down attitude) and A, South cashes ♥KQ, then plays ♦K, ♦A, diamond ruff, allowing West to score ♥J. How should he continue:
(a) If East played high-low in trumps?
(b) If East played low-high in trumps?

[MFA]

What did partner do in diamonds? At that point, partner had an excellent chance of foreseeing my problem and could show me for sure (with ♦Q or ♦J for instance), if he had ♣A or ♠K.

Can we rely on his ♦-play?

[gnasher]

MFA, on Aug 13 2008, 02:09 PM, said:

What did partner do in diamonds? At that point, partner had an excellent chance of foreseeing my problem and could show me for sure (with ♦Q or ♦J for instance), if he had ♣A or ♠K.

That's a good point. He might think that he has to play his diamond honours in a random order, but he can certainly signal with the two small ones.

If I've understand you correctly, if he plays high-low in both hearts and diamonds you'll play him for ♠K, and if he plays low-high twice you'll play him for ♣A?

What if he plays high-low in trumps then low-high in diamonds, or low-high in trumps then high-low in diamonds?

[mikeh]

I would expect partner to understand that the 6 was ambiguous: it could be from K96, giving declarer 4=4=2=3 or 9653 (or equivalent).

I would therefore expect the spade K if he played high low in trump, and I wouldn't be interested in how he played the diamonds: when he played the trump signal, he couldn't know (at least, not for sure) that he'd be getting another chance to signal, so the trump signal has to be trustworthy.

This is consistent with something I learned a long time ago: once you have conveyed the important information, carding after that should be uninformative, since declarer is watching as well.

[MFA]

gnasher, on Aug 13 2008, 10:18 AM, said:

MFA, on Aug 13 2008, 02:09 PM, said:

What did partner do in diamonds? At that point, partner had an excellent chance of foreseeing my problem and could show me for sure (with ♦Q or ♦J for instance), if he had ♣A or ♠K.

That's a good point. He might think that he has to play his diamond honours in a random order, but he can certainly signal with the two small ones.

If I've understand you correctly, if he plays high-low in both hearts and diamonds you'll play him for ♠K, and if he plays low-high twice you'll play him for ♣A?

What if he plays high-low in trumps then low-high in diamonds, or low-high in trumps then high-low in diamonds?

This is so much a partnership situation. It's not fair to partner to invent a convoluted spot card interpretation that one normally doesn't use, just because it will help on the actual deal.

In my regular partnership I would be confident about the diamond play, while the trump signal seems ambiguous with 3 possible suits to signal for. I feel the diamond signal is strong since the situation is quite easy for partner to visualize, and since I'm used to lavinthal signals not only when giving a ruff but also when partner is expected to (over-)ruff in 4th hand.

I disagree that this is a situation where it's necessary to randomize the ♦Q/♦J, so that is not an issue for me.

[MFA]

mikeh, on Aug 13 2008, 10:45 AM, said:

This is consistent with something I learned a long time ago: once you have conveyed the important information, carding after that should be uninformative, since declarer is watching as well.

This is a very dangerous principle, I think.

I prefer to help partner all the way through. If I'm desperate for a certain switch, I'll do whatever possible to steer partner to it. Or sometimes, one could give a suit preference signal and then later relax this preference with the following signals. And so on.

Only when further, or any, signalling seems to help declarer more than partner, I would play neutral cards.

[gnasher]

MFA, on Aug 14 2008, 01:59 AM, said:

This is so much a partnership situation.

Yes, I agree. My original reason for posting this hand was to firm up my partnership agreements about what suit preference signals actually mean.

Quote

It's not fair to partner to invent a convoluted spot card interpretation that one normally doesn't use, just because it will help on the actual deal.

Well, he has to do something when he has neither ♣A nor ♠K.

[FrancesHinden]

Let's go back to the spade suit. At trick 1, if partner's 6 is encouraging it's from precisely K96, giving declarer four spades. Is it consistent with the auction for declarer to have Axxx KQ10x Kx Axx, or is that a 1NT opening? Without a top club honour I assume he wouldn't have bid 4H over 3H.

At the point when partner was following in trumps, he didn't know if we could read his trick 1 signal or not, and I would expect him to peter in trumps with the SK; playing upwards in trumps doesn't promise the CA because he has to something with neither and the default is usually to play upwards.


By the way, I think we might have considered the virtues of not over-ruffing the third round of diamonds.

[gnasher]

FrancesHinden, on Aug 14 2008, 05:15 PM, said:

By the way, I think we might have considered the virtues of not over-ruffing the third round of diamonds.

I was starting to wonder if anyone was ever going to spot that. Not overruffing gets you whatever tricks you're entitled to, regardless of what partner has, so you can ignore his signals entirely.

This wasn't originally intended to be a trick question - I thought that the question about the meanings of signals was interesting in its own right, and hadn't actually noticed the best defence until after I'd posted my original question.