[awm]

Sometimes it's not clear whether the best signal at trick one is attitude, suit-preference, or count. Most top-flight partnerships have at least some agreements about these situations (i.e. count to ace lead at five-level or above, suit preference when dummy has singleton in the suit lead, etc) but there are still many situations which are unclear. I know that some pairs like to "try to signal what partner needs to know", which is great when you are on the same wavelength and terrible otherwise (I have seen both happen at the table to well-established pairs), and other pairs like to have as many rules as possible and follow them (guaranteeing that both know what the signal means, but implying that sometimes the signal is not the "most useful" information available).

One nice aspect of obvious shift is that it combines the attitude and suit-preference signals at trick one. This means the only remaining decision is "do we need to give count here" which hopefully is easier to determine than having to decide between all three options. There are however a few situations where you do need to give count at trick one (most commonly when partner leads the ace from ace-king in his long suit and dummy has several small cards, and we need to know how many tricks to cash before declarer can ruff).

The Switch in Time book suggests giving suit preference signals usually during the hand (unless count is clearly necessary). I think this is a good method (have played it a lot in my strongest regular partnership) for several reasons, one of which is that count signals are very commonly useful to declarer. Obviously you can give false count, but this means you have to constantly think about it (should I give true count or false count? who if anyone will it help? do I believe partner's count signal?) and also reduces the proportion of true signals during the hand. Suit preference signals can of course help declarer too, but I find that most of the time the information declarer gets out of these is less useful (i.e. "you are going down") and that it helps partner more. It's also a little easier to think about false-carding these, because it's more closely related to what you have to actually figure out in defending the hand than count signals (usually) are.

I also think that if you're playing "frequent suit preference signals" as the book suggests, you don't really need to play smith echo. Having seen a very established partnership screw up smith echo in GNT open just yesterday, this seems like an appealing thing to me.

[Siegmund]

I am a big fan of having an Obvious Shift agreement. It is, as a previous poster pointed out, not so much a "different kind of signal" as thinking about what partner will most likely switch to if I discourage the suit he has led. It spectacularly improved my defense as soon as I started thinking about what the obvious shift was.

That said, I did NOT so much care for the REST of Granovetter's book ("all suit preference all the time.") In the regular partnership where we adopted Obvious Shift, we kept all of our existing agreements about signal priorities (basically "attitude first, unless obvious or irrelevant, then count, unless obvious or irrelevant, then suit preference" ), and just added to it that all attitude signals were made mode precise via OS Principle. The only other change we made to our system was using an early trump echo to ask for the non-obvious shift.

Granovetter claimed, incidentally, that something like OS was expert standard, and I tend to believe him (all the defense books talk about how you must sometimes give false preference to avoid a disastrous shift, etc, they just don't talk much about how to evaluate the relative importance of the suit you're signaling for vs. the potential switch.)

[jdonn]

I have really never seen how obvious shift differs from simple attitude signals. Partner signals encouragement anyway if he can't stand the shift he expects you to make if discouraged. As far as I can tell the only relevance is in defining which suit is the obvious shift suit in close situations. But if it's a close situation I don't want to rule out the second-most-obvious shift suit in any case, so on that basis it seems a little unsound to me.

[awm]

jdonn, on Apr 26 2010, 04:58 PM, said:

I have really never seen how obvious shift differs from simple attitude signals. Partner signals encouragement anyway if he can't stand the shift he expects you to make if discouraged. As far as I can tell the only relevance is in defining which suit is the obvious shift suit in close situations. But if it's a close situation I don't want to rule out the second-most-obvious shift suit in any case, so on that basis it seems a little unsound to me.

Well there are several differences. Here are some examples:

(1) Opening lead is a suit that we're highly unlikely to want to continue (i.e. dummy has a singleton or ace-king-tight or something). Playing obvious shift, partner will discourage if he wants a shift to a particular side suit (the "obvious shift") and encourage if he either has no interest in either likely shift or wants a shift to the other side suit. If he dumps an unnecessary honor card it is a clear signal for the non-obvious shift side suit. Playing standard methods, I think the usual thing to do in this situation is to give a suit-preference signal. Of course this seems to accomplish the same thing (although which card is played to signal which suit will be different); however obvious shift helps if it is not 100% clear that continuing the lead suit is non-sensical (i.e. there is more difference between the "normal signal" and the "dummy has a stiff" signal playing standard carding).

(2) There has been an uninformative auction and dummy has two pretty similar looking suits aside from the one lead (i.e. say 1♠-3♠-4♠, partner leads a club, dummy hits with king-third in both reds). Playing standard methods, if we discourage the opening lead it will be clear that partner should switch to a red suit, but not which one. Some people try to solve this by playing suit preference with their spot cards (i.e. playing udca, small club is encouraging, medium club is for diamonds, big club is for hearts) but trying to squish three possible meanings into one signal often makes the spots much harder to read. Playing obvious shift, one of the suits is identified as the "obvious shift suit" (normally diamonds, the tie-breaker is lower suit) and a discouraging trick one signal says "switch to this suit." This makes it a lot easier to give a clear signal for diamonds and somewhat harder to signal for hearts (sometimes we encourage when we want a heart shift, although if we can dump an honor card on the first club it is a clearer signal).

(3) In general, it occasionally comes up that you want partner to make a weird shift that he's unlikely to think of on his own. Like say you have a void in dummy's very strong suit; it can be very hard to get partner to switch to that suit since an encouraging signal often gets partner to continue the suit lead, and a discouraging signal gets the "normal shift" from partner to try to establish side suit tricks before dummy's long suit runs. Obvious shift has this special agreement about dumping honors to get the "non-obvious" shift. Of course, sometimes people play that anyway but at least here there is a clear-cut rule about which shift is "non-obvious" (i.e. say they have an auction to 4♥, partner leads the ace of diamonds from ace-king and dummy hits with five clubs to the KQJ, a stiff spade, three small diamonds, and some trumps -- how do you get partner to switch to a club at trick two without cashing a second diamond?)

(4) The follow-up strategy of giving suit-preference to declarer's leads rather than count is very different from standard signals. It occasionally bites you (when you need count and pd doesn't signal it) but it also can be extremely helpful.

[dake50]

I play FARTP: ForceAttackRuffTrumpPassive in that order.
So when I discourage it discourages the FARTP aspect started.
Let partner 'see' what change I hope for -not some conventionalized Obvious Switch.

[jdonn]

Adam that whole list looks like a lot of break even to me. Between "continue", "switch", and "do something weird" it's just a different way to arrange the plays of low/high/drop something weird.

[awm]

I think the main benefit is eliminating guesswork. Perhaps the right examples are:

(1) Have you ever lead something and had to guess whether partner's card was attitude or suit preference? Or wished that partner was signaling suit preference when in fact he wasn't?

(2) Have you ever lead something, gotten a discouraging signal, and then found yourself guessing at your next opportunity which other suit partner needs you to switch to?

(3) Have you ever had a very non-obvious void in a side suit when defending a suit contract and wished you could get partner to switch to that suit, but been unable to do so?

Personally, I have had all three of these experiences playing "normal" (okay udca) carding with good partners. I've also seen long-term established pairs of good players have issues with all three of these scenarios at the table (and benefited from my opponents' defensive problems). None of these situations have happened to me in partnerships where I play obvious shift.

[mike777]

Please read Switch in time book from what......20+ years ago..


If you think the arguement for it is weak...fair enough........main point if I remember is that true WC do not know what OS shift is........at trick one.....that many WC players play......trick one to mean many different things.........and partner does not know....

In any event I think if you are not of top WC....OS will help your game....

most difficult part is getting a partner to agree to it...._

[jdonn]

awm, on Apr 27 2010, 12:41 AM, said:

I think the main benefit is eliminating guesswork. Perhaps the right examples are:

(1) Have you ever lead something and had to guess whether partner's card was attitude or suit preference? Or wished that partner was signaling suit preference when in fact he wasn't?

(2) Have you ever lead something, gotten a discouraging signal, and then found yourself guessing at your next opportunity which other suit partner needs you to switch to?

(3) Have you ever had a very non-obvious void in a side suit when defending a suit contract and wished you could get partner to switch to that suit, but been unable to do so?

Personally, I have had all three of these experiences playing "normal" (okay udca) carding with good partners. I've also seen long-term established pairs of good players have issues with all three of these scenarios at the table (and benefited from my opponents' defensive problems). None of these situations have happened to me in partnerships where I play obvious shift.

1. What's the difference, isn't your encouraging signal attitude in either method?
2. What's the difference, you will shift to the "obvious shift" no matter which method you are playing.
3. What's the difference, you can drop an unusually high card to get an unusual shift in either method.

[mike777]

As I said the book says.....many wc players do not agree on what is OS suit.....at trick one .....In fact many play...that trick one is not attitude so.......


add On a few other things............that at best...OS makes a rule.....


In any event I find when playing with really good players they want to be "flexible" at trick one and follow ups......OS sets up rules....

simple example in some cases I find really good players want to play........suit pref at trick one when dummy is short....OS does not././/

[Free]

Josh has a point that it's just rearranging the meanings of a card. It's like the difference between revolving discards and lavinthal discards in a suit contract. You just need to agree what every card means, that's all.

If you play UDCA, then playing a high card asks for the OS. Playing standard however, you need a low card to ask for the OS. So without knowing the rest of your carding methods, one can hardly speak of "playing OS".

For me, a small card is encouraging or doesn't want the OS, a high card asks the OS, an unusual honour card clearly asks the NOS. But you might as well redefine these meanings.

You don't need 20 rules to determine the OS suit either, you can just say it's the highest remaining suit and play accordingly. In that case however, you'll probably drop too many unusual honour cards...

Eventually it's just a method for our own comfort, because many players don't have these simple agreements like "if I drop an unusual honour card I want you to do something unusual" (*). It gives the impression that you can do more with this method than standard, but this is only an illusion. The biggest advantage is the strict rules which make the situation easy.

(*) For example I've played with someone who insisted on playing UDCA only at the 1st trick. At a certain moment I lead an Ace from AKx and he dropped the Queen under it. He wanted to show he has the Jack as well, but I obviously took it as discouraging and switched...

[straube]

The concern I have about OS is that in many situations partner would otherwise be signalling whether has a touching honor card. Say partner leads the K from KQ and I don't have the jack and I can't stand the obvious switch...I have to decide whether to trick partner into continuing the suit into declarer's AJ tenace or whether to encourage partner to lead away from an honor in the OS suit. Had I been playing standard signals, I could discourage partner and he could decide whether to make the obvious switch or pick a neutral lead.

Thoughts?

[mike777]

OS says one of three things at trick one.

1) continue
2) make OS
3) shift to non OS suit.

You can never ask for a trump shift at trick one, partner needs to figure that out.

The biggest thing is the book has a set of defined rules what the OS suit is.

The book would argue that many top experts do not agree what the OS suit is or even if the play at trick one is attitude, count or suit pref. Many WC players, the book would say, play any or all of the above and expect partner to figure it out.

Simple example many good players play if say you lead an Ace and there is a stiff in dummy of lead suit then you play suit pref........this book says no...... still attitude......

If you hate these sort of rigid rules you won't like OS

If you dont mind it you might like OS/

[awm]

Let me try again to clarify. Suppose partner leads suit A. There are two other (non-trump) suits B and C. Playing attitude you can signal either:

[ A] (encourage)
[ B or C] (discourage)

Of course, if you play suit-preference at trick one for some reason then you can signal either:

[ B or A]
[ C or A]

Playing obvious shift in the same situation, suppose that suit B is the obvious shift suit. You can signal either:

[ A or C] (encourage)
[ B] (discourage)

Of course, in all cases there is some ambiguity. However, I think the main advantage is that in many cases it quickly becomes obvious that either A or C is ridiculous. This is because the position in the lead suit is often clear after trick one, and also because C is sometimes a suit that it really cannot rationally be right to play (B always makes more sense than C b/c of obvious shift rules). Whenever this occurs, the obvious shift signal clarifies which suit to play. However, "normal" signaling only works if it was clear to both the signaler and the opening leader which of A/C was ridiculous at trick one (not if it becomes clear after declarer plays to that trick and possibly the next trick or two). This is because you have to shift signaling styles (from attitude to suit preference) to handle the case where continuing A is ridiculous. If the signaling player did not realize this at the time of the signal, an opportunity is wasted. It's even worse if the opening leader misreads whether the signal was attitude/suit preference because he did not realize at the time which play was ridiculous.

[mike777]

there is case three......shift to non OS suit......three options in OS


Of course reading the third case can be tough to read at times....

Perhaps left out of the discussion is that Pam and Matt stress that your bridge knowledge and your bridge logic takes priority at all times.....if pard tells you to continue but your knowledge of bridge tells you to shift to a trump......follow your knowledge....

If you are a great player you will do better at OS than a nonexpert player using OS but OS will still help the nonexpert player alot.....

[jdonn]

awm, on Apr 27 2010, 04:52 PM, said:

Let me try again to clarify. Suppose partner leads suit A. There are two other (non-trump) suits B and C. Playing attitude you can signal either:

[ A] (encourage)
[ B or C] (discourage)

Of course, if you play suit-preference at trick one for some reason then you can signal either:

[ B or A]
[ C or A]

Playing obvious shift in the same situation, suppose that suit B is the obvious shift suit. You can signal either:

[ A or C] (encourage)
[ B] (discourage)

Of course, in all cases there is some ambiguity. However, I think the main advantage is that in many cases it quickly becomes obvious that either A or C is ridiculous. This is because the position in the lead suit is often clear after trick one, and also because C is sometimes a suit that it really cannot rationally be right to play (B always makes more sense than C b/c of obvious shift rules). Whenever this occurs, the obvious shift signal clarifies which suit to play. However, "normal" signaling only works if it was clear to both the signaler and the opening leader which of A/C was ridiculous at trick one (not if it becomes clear after declarer plays to that trick and possibly the next trick or two). This is because you have to shift signaling styles (from attitude to suit preference) to handle the case where continuing A is ridiculous. If the signaling player did not realize this at the time of the signal, an opportunity is wasted. It's even worse if the opening leader misreads whether the signal was attitude/suit preference because he did not realize at the time which play was ridiculous.

Adam the method still doesn't make sense. First if C is ridiculous then either method easily signals between A and B so that entire point is moot.

As for realizing that continuing the opening lead is ridiculous, that information is exactly as available to one defender as the other because it only has to do with dummy, the lead agreements, and the auction. In other words it's a case of "could continuing this suit be right" which is a matter of bridge logic and has nothing to do with either hand. It's not something one defender will know but not the other.

But even if I were to grant you for some reason that the leader needs to rely on a signal from his partner to know if continuing the opening lead suit could be right, there is still C to worry about! What about all those times continuing the led suit could be right but shifting to C is NOT ridiculous and could also be right? Then partner's "encouraging" signal is of no help at all. You say essentially B > C but that's not always the case, opening leader may be able to tell from his hand the 'obvious shift suit' is wrong and needs help deciding between the other two.

Now that I think I understand what you're saying I like obvious shift even less than before.

[mikeh]

Josh

It is a little unfair to criticize a complex method without ever playing it or reading the book. Adam is doing a pretty good job of summarizing some of the best aspects of the method, but its benefits probably can't be appreciated without trying it.

But I will take a stab at adding to Adam's points.

When an OS lead is made, unless partner is trying to win the trick or it is a partnership-agreed count situation, he gives attitude as between two suits..the lead and a specified side suit. The OS suit is determined by the application of rules based on the bidding and the dummy, such that there is never any ambiguity.

A standard leader knows only whether partner likes the led suit, and partner has to decide whether to suggest he likes the suit or can stand a switch, often without any real confidence that partner will figure out what to switch to.

We may face a situation in which a switch to, say, diamonds is great, but a switch to clubs is disastrous....and dummy looks such that there is no real way partner can tell....say the auction was very unrevealing about declarer's hand.

At least OS players will be able to signal the shift half the time or more, because at least half the time our good defensive holding will be in the defined OS suit (I say at least half the time because the rules defining OS are not completely arbitrary).

The other half of the time, they must decide whether to lie about the suit led is less risky than lying about the OS suit.

If that were all there was to it, you'd ask: what's the gain? In standard, we discourage all the time and at least half the time our expert partner makes the winning switch.

But there is more. Often, declarer will win the opening lead in dummy or in hand, and now partner can, unless count or trying to win the trick is important, give suit preference at trick 2: thus if we encourage at trick one and discourage the original lead suit at trick 2, we have conveyed a lot of useful info.

Plus, once in while, we can 'flag' at trick one, which sends the message that we like neither the original lead nor the OS suit.

This is a very crude explanation of a very subtle and powerful method. As someone who played it in a very serious partnership for several years, I can attest to its effectiveness. Defence is still a fairly strong part of my game, but there is no doubt in my mind that it is not as strong as it was when I played OS.

[jdonn]

What's unfair? I entered with an open mind and a simple opinion and have since criticized only based on what Adam said. What you have said has not changed my mind at all (other than your continued insistance it makes you defend like you have never defended before ). Obviously anyone can give a lot of useful info with a trick 1 signal combined with a trick 2 signal, that isn't anything special about the method. Otherwise everything else you say, yet again, looks like a break even (at best) with standard signalling, you are simply restating in different words all the points Adam has made and that I believe I have refuted.

Can someone give an example of a hand that is a big victory for OS?

[straube]

I think I'm warming to the idea. I read Granovetter's book some years ago and it made sense to me at the time, but I was uneasy after reading Rodwell's reaction to it.

It seems like the big plus for the OS is having rules so that both partners know what the OS suit actually is. It might often be obvious, but when it's not...

I guess if partner leads the K from KQ and I believe that declarer is holding up with the AJ (my partner and I lead K from KQ but Q from KQJ), then I would naturally discourage partner from continuing the suit, whether I liked the OS or not. Better to have partner potentially finesse himself than definitely do so.

[akhare]

straube, on Apr 27 2010, 08:19 PM, said:

I guess if partner leads the K from KQ and I believe that declarer is holding up with the AJ (my partner and I lead K from KQ but Q from KQJ), then I would naturally discourage partner from continuing the suit, whether I liked the OS or not.  Better to have partner potentially finesse himself than definitely do so.

I don't think that there can be a canonical rule in this regard. Basically, discouragement indicates tolerance for a shift to the OS.

In some cases, it might be better to encourage continuation of the suit even if it risks leading into declarer's presumed tenace because it's likely to do the least damage (and partner may have a solid holding after all).

In other words, I don't think automatic discouragement out of the fear of leading into declarer's presumed tenace is the right answer though because declarer has to have a specific holding and pard may very well have a solid holding.

awm, phil, et all,

BTW, how does Smith Echo work in conjunction with the OS?