[Vampyr]

 Fluffy, on 2013-December-03, 14:28, said:

The traditional inferior meaning of ace unblock didn't cross the atlantic, we had a better method

Is it better? It forces us to use the Queen for attitude, lending ambiguity to the lead of that card.

[Zelandakh]

 32519, on 2013-December-04, 00:03, said:

Partner hates the suit and wants a switch. But switch to what suit? To assist with the switch,

There is a simpler way that works more generally. Play the card \ (diagionally left) to ask for the lowest ranking suit; | (vertically) to ask for the middle suit; and / (diagnonally right) for the highest suit. Playing it as - (horizontally) is encouraging for the suit led. The great part about this method is that it can be used in all situations and even on lead. You never have to worry about holding the wrong card or sending an ambiguous message. You could potentially combine it with a more traditional carding agreement to send more subtle shades of information, or to add a level of deception to declarer.

[32519]

 Vampyr, on 2013-December-04, 07:16, said:

Put a smiley so inexperienced players know you are joking!

What makes you think I am joking?

 Zelandakh, on 2013-December-04, 08:37, said:

There is a simpler way that works more generally. Play the card \ (diagionally left) to ask for the lowest ranking suit; | (vertically) to ask for the middle suit; and / (diagnonally right) for the highest suit. Playing it as - (horizontally) is encouraging for the suit led. The great part about this method is that it can be used in all situations and even on lead. You never have to worry about holding the wrong card or sending an ambiguous message. You could potentially combine it with a more traditional carding agreement to send more subtle shades of information, or to add a level of deception to declarer.

Zel, we tried this but because the partners are sitting at opposite ends of the table, confusion arose as to which way the card was lying. Is \ (diagionally left) or / (diagnonally right) from the players point of view or from partners point of view. After too many mishaps we gave up on it and switched to my post higher up.

[Lorne50]

Here is s 1000 deal simulation for spade leads after pass 1N(12-14) all pass with 3rd hand fixed and 4th hand having 1-4 cards in each suit and 0-10 points:

ticks <=5 6 7 8 9 10+
Ace 53 142 328 296 161 20
small 26 102 266 335 240 31

Looks like ace is a winner but DD you find the right switch 100% of the time so may not be clearcut at the table.

[FrancesHinden]

 Vampyr, on 2013-December-04, 07:20, said:

Is it better? It forces us to use the Queen for attitude, lending ambiguity to the lead of that card.

If you are going to use one lead to ask for unblock/count, you will always have ambiguity with one of the other leads, the one you make when you hold your 'strong' card but can't afford to lead it. If the ace is your strong card, the king will be ambiguous.
The hand that started this thread is a typical example.

There are two reasons using the king as strong seems to me superior than the ace

There are holdings that need count or unblock from partner that don't include the ace - the default one is KQ109x
There are very few holdings that include the ace but not the king. In fact, I can't think of any that cannot survive by leading a lower honour, or leading the ace and getting attitude from partner.

[MickyB]

 FrancesHinden, on 2013-December-08, 03:26, said:

If you are going to use one lead to ask for unblock/count, you will always have ambiguity with one of the other leads, the one you make when you hold your 'strong' card but can't afford to lead it. If the ace is your strong card, the king will be ambiguous.
The hand that started this thread is a typical example.

There are two reasons using the king as strong seems to me superior than the ace

There are holdings that need count or unblock from partner that don't include the ace - the default one is KQ109x
There are very few holdings that include the ace but not the king. In fact, I can't think of any that cannot survive by leading a lower honour, or leading the ace and getting attitude from partner.

If you lead K from KQT or AKxx, partner must discourage with the jack, this seems basically unplayable. Q from KQx or QJ9 is much less of an issue.

[Zelandakh]

 FrancesHinden, on 2013-December-08, 03:26, said:

There are holdings that need count or unblock from partner that don't include the ace - the default one is KQ109x

You can get around this one by having the queen ask for unblock of the jack. There is also the equivalent holding without a king (AQJTxxx or whatever). The bigger issue is the one that Micky brings up where you are unsure if holding the jack should encourage or discourage. The equivalent (but lesser problem is holding the queen after an ace lead, since you do not know if the king is also held by OLer).

Against this disadvantage you have more options for the J, T and 9 leads. It is a matter of weighing the pros and cons. For experts I am fairly sure the Rusinow-style method with a strong king is best because they will almost always do the right thing in those difficult cases. For intermediates I think a method like Journalist (strong ace, weak J, weak 9) is better because it makes the common difficult decisions easier.