BBO Discussion Forums: Pedantic - BBO Discussion Forums

I thought the director of the day was being a bit pedantic ....

North was playing a 3NT contract and had a long run of diamonds - part way through East threw off the 3 of hearts. North asked West about their signals and West replied that it was an encouraging card for hearts. North had in dummy the JTx of hearts and in hand the AQxx and played the J of hearts from dummy intending to finesse East for the King - East played a club (the 3 of hearts had been a singleton) - North called the director saying that she had based her play on the information given by West.

West had correctly explained their system - the 3 of hearts should have been an encouraging card, but East was caught in a squeeze wanting hang on to her Qxx of spades and a club to return to partner (the opening lead). The heart finesse was never going to work as West held Kxxxx. After the game was over the director came to our table where I was sitting with West and told him that he must never say "It is an encouraging card" but must always preface the statement by saying "Our agreement is ..... that it is an encouraging card".

Best is to say what your agreement is, not how to interpret the specific card partner played.

So in your case, I think West should say "a low card encourages hearts". Not "It is an encouraging card".

Yes, don't say "this card shows..." or anything like that. Say "low shows", "odds shows", "first discard tends to show", etc.

Of course it's ridiculous how literal people are in situations like this. If I hold JTx opposite AQxx and the person in front of the AQ throws a card, I will not believe they intended that card as "I have the king of hearts" regardless of what I am told. Duh?

While I agree that there are better ways to phrase these things, I really don't think it matters in a situation like this. If you play odd-even discards, and declarer asks about your discards immediately after you discard an odd spade, does it make much difference if you say "odd cards indicate he likes that suit" or "he's showing that he likes spades"? The former explanation will naturally be translated in his mind to the latter in this instance.

Furthermore, any competent bridge player should know that defensive signals are not guarantees, since you're constrained by the cards you hold. There are also times when defenders choose not to give honest signals, because they think it will help declarer more than partner, or because you believe that partner can infer your count or attitude in the suit.

So while I agree with the director's advice about how best to describe your carding, I think it should be very rare that declarer would get a ruling in his favor because of the kind of explanation that was given. The defenders are not on your side, you can't trust their carding.

barmar, on 2012-June-30, 14:54, said:

There are a number of problems with this, a little with odd/even but a lot with high/low. The biggest problem is high and low are relative. Sometimes a 3 is high because it's the best you can do, and what may look low to you may not look low to your opponent or vice/versa. Even though odd/even is not like that because cards are one or the other, sometimes for example you have all odd cards but you didn't want to encourage anything, and declarer should be given the information to draw that inference.

There is another problem. What if you can't tell if a card is high or low? Then you are passing UI to your partner because this time you have to say "if it's high it's encouraging, if it's low it's discouraging" when the times you can tell you said "it's encouraging".

One other point is you may cause your opponent to ask again next time unnecessarily, even during the same hand. If you say "that card is encouraging" I don't know if it was encouraging because it was odd or high or low.

Your opponent should just know what you have agreed for the situation. It's not up to you to translate the individual plays for him.

All those things are true, but they address very different issues than declarer's complaint in the OP. I feel pretty certain that if he'd been told "low cards are encouraging", he would have treated the 3 as a low card (we weren't told where the 2 was, so there's a 2:1 chance declarer could see it, and even if he can't the 3 "seems" low) and taken the same action. I think he could make the same complaint to the director about basing his play on the signal, and as a director I would tell him the same thing: you can't trust defensive signals. Sometimes they don't have an honest card to play safely, and sometimes they falsecard intentionally.

Chris3875, on 2012-June-29, 17:21, said:

The TD has almost got it right, but he's contradicted himself in tacking on "it is an encouraging card". A defender should never offer an interpretation of what a particular card or sequence of cards is and should only disclose to declarer what their carding agreements are and what sort of priority they give to different types of signals in differnet types of situations. If declarer asks what a particular card means, the correct response is, "that entirely depends on what he's got in his hand, what I've got in my hand and what you've got in your hand".

Doesn't that make a bit of a nonsense of having signals in the first place?

Chris3875, on 2012-July-01, 05:25, said:

No. Your opponents are just as entitled to know what your carding agreements are as you are.

I have a big problem understanding why "It is an encouraging card" is not to be taken as short for "According to our agreements It is an encouraging card" and therefore is a perfectly proper way of disclosing agreements on signals.

pran, on 2012-July-01, 12:21, said:

It's not hard to understand. There are lots of reasons that I detailed in post 5. But I'll add to that.

"It is an encouraging card" is not your agreement. Your agreement is perhaps "Low cards are encouraging in this situation and high cards are discouraging". You can't say "this card means ___" in the same way you can say "this bid means ___" because with bids it is known by all which bids were available for the player, but with cards it isn't, therefore maybe you or declarer can't tell whether the card was low or high.

Also, as I said before, what do you say if you can't tell whether partner's card is high or low, and thus whether it's encouraging or discouraging? If only in that situation you say "High is discouraging" instead of "His card is ___" then you are giving UI about the spot cards you hold. Even worse, what if you err because you thought it was low but it was really high, such as he discards the 3 from A32?

pran, on 2012-July-01, 12:21, said:

Because both of those statements are not at all proper.
As lalldonn has explained, if you say whether a card is encouraging or discouraging according to your agreements, you have given partner UI that you could tell whether the card was high or low (as well as giving declarer that information, which might well not be in your interests). I've played a 'high' 3 and a 'low' 9 before now.

barmar, on 2012-June-30, 15:23, said:

Yes. Declarer's complaint in the OP was rubbish and I think everyone agrees with that.
It doesn't change the valid point about how you should explain your carding.

Because some people, at least, will take it as meaning "that card is encouraging."

I know a player who prefaces explanations of carding systems with "If it shows anything at all..." Which seemed to be such a simple and wise way of saying it, that I now say that too.

iviehoff, on 2012-July-02, 04:38, said:

I think I now understand something my regular partner does. We play odd/even 1st discard, and when explaining an even discard he prefaces it with "if it's suit preference...". That's always bugged me, since our agreement is that an even card IS suit preference. What I now think he means is "if he has a preference...."

I'm not sure how this relates to this thread but I had a funny/annoying occurrence once when as declarer I asked one of the defenders what their partnership's discards meant not immediately after the signal had been made (one of them discarded a low spade on a heart on trick 3, I asked their partner on trick 6 how they discard). It became obvious that they didn't remember what they discarded anymore and I didn't feel like reminding them. RHO just kept repeating "revolving preference discards" (a name that I didn't know) and insisted that I tell him some examples and then he can tell me what a discard means. I guess best would have been to go through all possibilities ("what would a small diamond mean? and a big diamond? etc") OK I should have called the director.

barmar, on 2012-June-30, 14:54, said:

It is quite clear that describing a declarer who calls the TD in a case like this as "competent" is wide of the mark. Nevertheless, fairly competent, fairly incompetent, and completely incompetent declarers still should not be misinformed, so giving the wrong answer is not the way to go.

mrdct, on 2012-June-30, 23:15, said:

Chris3875, on 2012-July-01, 05:25, said:

No, Chris: you have to make judgements. If partner plays an 8 it is reasonable to guess it is a high card but you might be wrong. If you can see the 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 you might re-consider anyway. Signals are not devoid of judgement.

So if partner discards an 8 playing standard attitude, and you are asked what you play "high is encouraging, low is discouraging" is the correct answer. It would be very embarrassing, and MI, if he held J98 and the 8 was low and partner had described it as encouraging.

pran, on 2012-July-01, 12:21, said:

How do you know that their agreement is not "We play 3s as encouraging, everything else as discouraging"?

It may not matter too much, but the reply is definitively MI.

gwnn, on 2012-July-02, 09:01, said:

I'll say it before Ed does: names are not good enough. Of course you should have called the TD, who would have told the player to explain his agreements without using names.

FrancesHinden, on 2012-July-01, 15:08, said:

If you play odd/even discards, then you might properly say "an odd card encourages the suit". Provided of course that you go on to say "but if partner is constrained to discard a heart and has nothing but odd hearts from which to choose, then she does not necessarily want to encourage the suit". Whereas you should not transmit the information that you can tell whether a card is relatively high or relatively low, it seems to me that the information that a card is odd or even is already in the public domain.

Of course, you could always try a tactic first employed (in my experience at least) by a player who in later life became a prominent tournament director and member of the Laws and Ethics Committee. When asked by my left-hand opponent what my discard of the seven of spades meant, he said "it means that he regards the trick-taking potential of the seven of spades as lower than that of at least one other card in his hand". Entirely satisfied with this explanation, declarer continued to play.

dburn, on 2012-July-02, 16:55, said:

Isn't the only correct answer to, say, about questions regarded partner's play to your first first lead to say something like:

'we play <insert name of whatever we play here>, and in this situation our signal priority is attitude-count-suit preference. so in this case if partner intends the card as attitude, a low card would be encouraging and a high card is discouraging. If partner intends the card as count, high-low is even. If partner intends the card as suit preference, we play a high card asks for the next suit up in suit order (I include an example here if the suit is spades), or the next suit down (I include an example here if the suit is clubs).'

Then the reality is most people cut you off at the first part or whichever part they wanted to know and then you go on with your life.


e: vvvvv Playing standard carding is a big advantage there lol.