[DavidKok]

Helene and I very recently discussed and changed up our lead and signalling agreements, and as a result the topic has been on my mind. Over the years I've played a lot of lead and signalling agreements, and for a few years I played completely different sets with different partners depending on the day of the week. Some examples of the agreements I played are listed below, but rather than diving into the details immediately I had a few very broad observations.

• Almost always, the actual lead and signalling agreements did not matter. What does matter a lot is being on the same page as partner. Conveying some amount of information accurately beats attempting to convey a lot of information through uncertain means.
  
• Nearly all players around me picked a set of carding methods when young/just beginning, and changed it up maybe once or twice in their entire bridge career. Most people struggle tremendously to switch between different agreements, and struggle to reason through the implications of a change in agreements.
  
• It is very difficult to find sources motivating one set of lead agreements over another. Almost all the sources I did find were little more than some cherry-picked example deals without acknowledging possible downsides, and/or "obviously it is better and the experts play this way".

To me this is quite unsatisfactory. I am really eager to learn more about differences in carding methods, along with their possible benefits and costs. I have found precisely one book that claims to investigate exactly this - "Systems in Defence" by Lukasz Slawinski - and I am not sure it is definitive. As a complicating factor, every bridge player has some just-so story prepared to explain why the signals they have been playing for 20 years are great. Obviously, if this is the case for everybody even while playing different methods, it casts some doubt on claims of relative merits of the treatments. I am looking for more thorough analysis on leads and carding methods - why pick one set over another, when do they win, when do they lose, what are we trying to achieve or which holdings are we catering for? This thread hopefully can spark a discussion, or suggest sources with more information on the topic.

These are (some of, I'm sure I have forgotten others) the carding agreements I've played over the years. I've only listed the names and a brief explanation, rather than the full explanation, as that would become very long very quickly.
Leads:

• 4th best leads.
  
• Attitude leads (low from Hxx or longer, high from empty suits).
  
• 1st/3rd/5th leads.
  
• Polish leads (2nd/4th, choosing 2nd from an empty 4(+) suit).
  
• Journalist leads.
  
• MUD.
  
• Top of a sequence.
  
• Top of an interior sequence.
  
• Rusinow (versus NT, versus trump, or both).
  
• Ace from ace-king/king from ace-king.
  
• Ace attitude, king count/ace count, king attitude.
  
• Honours request unblock versus NT.

Carding agreements:

• Upside down/standard attitude.
  
• Upside down/standard count.
  
• Attitude on first discard.
  
• Count on first discard.
  
• Lavinthal(/McKenney) on first discard.
  
• Roman Lavinthal on first discard.
  
• Revolving discards.
  
• Lavinthal "in specific obvious situations".
  
• Second/third hand lowest of a sequence.
  
• Second/third hand lowest of two connected honours, highest of 3(+).
  
• (Standard or Reverse) Oddball/Smith Echo - by one hand, or by both hands.
  
• Lavinthal in the trump suit.
  
• Count in the trump suit.
  
• Attitude shifts in suit.
  
• 1st/3rd/5th shifts in suit.
  
• Polish shifts in suit.

I've also played a bunch of these with more complicated conditions, such as "standard signals trick one, upside down for 2-13", or "attitude leads in suits we have supported, 1st/3rd/5th leads otherwise" or "at the 5-level, change up our ace and king lead agreements" or different rules for suit shifts through declarer and through dummy, and more. In the Netherlands it is very popular to play different agreements versus NT and trump suits, which seems reasonable (why should they be the same?) but I would like to have a much better understanding of the quantitative gains and losses from this approach.
Then there are more complicated questions, such as

• Do we signal to suggest a defence, or to indicate a holding so that partner may decide on a defence?
  
• How do your signals change in meaning as more information is revealed during the play (or during the auction?!), and how do we make sure our partnership stays on the same page as this happens?
  
• How do we disclose all this to our opponents?

Lastly there are quite a few agreements I've seen that I have never played but would be very interested in hearing why people adopt them. This includes, for example:

• Suit preference trick one.
  
• The obvious shift principle.
  
• Nonstandard signals, such as Slawinski Leads or Auken - von Arnim's signal against NT.
  
• Coded 9s and 10s, or power leads.

My current understanding is that, for pretty much all of these, people play them almost exclusively because it is what they have always played and it is what their teachers played when they were learning the game. Do we have anything better?

[mw64ahw]

One I see played locally, but am not a fan of is Dodds where the discard of an 'Even' card suggests a liking for the suit being discarded, whilst the discard of an 'Odd' card suggests a liking for the suit of the same colour.

[mycroft]

There's a big issue with Slawinski leads (and Vinje Signals) that may or may not override any benefit they may have over "nothing" or over "because we've always played it" for anyone else choosing to use them.

Of course, this is coming from an EHAA player - who I guess at least has 40 years of "water under the bridge" and at least significantly lower-rank "issues"?

[mycroft]

On a serious note, I play what I play because it's "what I learned", and switching now may get me a benefit eventually, but there's a *lot* of automemory that needs to be broken (even to go to, say, 3rd and 5th).

But I do tell people that "I can't play Lavinthal/Odd-Even discards in tempo". I don't mention why, of course (it does not involve "a lot of automemory that needs to be broken").

[DavidKok]

 mycroft, on 2024-July-08, 09:51, said:

There's a big issue with Slawinski leads (and Vinje Signals) that may or may not override any benefit they may have over "nothing" or over "because we've always played it" for anyone else choosing to use them.

Of course, this is coming from an EHAA player - who I guess at least has 40 years of "water under the bridge" and at least significantly lower-rank "issues"?

I was told that Slawinski leads in particular are much worse than the book suggests on account of being too complicated, and I also got some suggestive winks that people using them were cheating/using the tempo of their plays as a main way to convey information.

I've run into the Vinje/Prism signals but as far as I can tell they are inferior to standard signals, though I'm happy to see other methods that I hadn't included in my post.

[Cyberyeti]

 mw64ahw, on 2024-July-08, 09:05, said:

One I see played locally, but am not a fan of is Dodds where the discard of an 'Even' card suggests a liking for the suit being discarded, whilst the discard of an 'Odd' card suggests a liking for the suit of the same colour.

Dodds and prism signals suffer from the same thing, not having the right card, then playing slowly and partner reading that as the issue

[bluenikki]

 DavidKok, on 2024-July-08, 07:28, said:

[*]Polish leads (2nd/4th, choosing 2nd from an empty 4(+) suit).

The "+" is something I've never understood. It's in ACBL SAYC as well.

Mostly, when you lead an empty suit you hope partner has lots of honors. And in that case, they need to know how many will cash.

[akwoo]

 bluenikki, on 2024-July-08, 10:55, said:

The "+" is something I've never understood. It's in ACBL SAYC as well.

Mostly, when you lead an empty suit you hope partner has lots of honors. And in that case, they need to know how many will cash.

When I lead an empty suit I'm usually hoping partner has nothing in that suit either, so I didn't give away a trick or save declarer a dummy entry.

Perhaps I play too much matchpoints.

[PrecisionL]

Been playing Obvious Shift (1st Choice) for 20+ years (with only 3 partners). We had more arguments over what is the Obvious Shift than we did over sweep cue bidding.

Very difficult to teach a new partner.

2nd choice is UDCA. (No O/E discards)

Coded 10s and 9s only through the strong hand (usually declarer).

(4+ = 4th or longer)

[helene_t]

 bluenikki, on 2024-July-08, 10:55, said:

The "+" is something I've never understood. It's in ACBL SAYC as well.

Mostly, when you lead an empty suit you hope partner has lots of honors. And in that case, they need to know how many will cash.

Yes but isn't it actually easier to give correct count after having led xXxxx than xXxx ?

The idea with xXxx is that you play the highest card next to complete your "even" signal. This is one of the beauties of Polish leads (as well as Norwegian leads): the leads are consistent with the carding system.

I can imagine leading from 9Xxx and then not being able to afford the 9 next time. With 9Xxxx you are supposed to show you odd number by playing a lower card next, if I understand correctly.

Although it doesn't happen so often that you want to lead from 9xxxx or worse. Unless you hope to give partner a ruff, in which case I suppose your count isn't so critical for partner.

We play current UD count also, this feels consistent with Polish leads and carding, and I find it easier. But some people think that you should play standard current count even if you normally play UD count. Any thoughts?

[awm]

When I was younger, I experimented with a lot of unusual system ideas and that includes leads and carding. Many of these ended up in the dustbin, but there are a couple I've stuck with:

1. Obvious shift. The book by Matt Granovetter gives a pretty good presentation with examples from world class events. My general view is that count signals are only occasionally useful, and suit preference to declarer's leads can help a lot more. Even in partnerships where we don't play the full obvious shift system, I've added a lot of suit preference signals (in the trump suit, discards, etc). The trick one signal is nice because it gives you two bits of information (whether to continue and which suit to switch to) and also removes a lot of "special exceptions" that people use with standard carding and gives the ability to signal for a continuation or for an unusual shift when this would be otherwise difficult (i.e. please continue even though dummy has singleton in a suit contract).

2. Rusinow from 4+ cards against notrump. I've noticed that I like to lead from holdings like JTx, QJx, KQx against notrump contracts more often than might be true in the classical literature. The problem is that partner can't always tell whether I'm leading from a real suit or just from an honor sequence in a three-card suit, and often partner needs to do something different in these cases (encourage vs. discourage, continue the suit when he gets in or not, etc). Rusinow from 4+ solves this for partner, without seeming to cause very many issues for our side.

[johnu]

One of the worst carding agreements ever is the Foster echo. The concept was that against NT, if 3rd hand couldn't beat dummy, they played 2nd highest. This could be 8 from 982, or 8 from Q82. In addition to potentially wasting a good spot card, opening leader frequently had no clue about partner's holding.

For unknown reason, a lot of players were playing this in my area when I started playing tournament bridge. IIRC, this even was included on the ACBL convention card as a checkbox.

[DavidKok]

This discussion has cooled significantly right after its inception. Right now it would help me the most if there were books or literature on some of these methods, so that I can better try to understand them.

• I've read a 2-page summary of the Obvious Shift Principle by Pamela and Matthew Granovetter - is there a more comprehensive source?
  
• Regarding Rusinow, I've heard a lot of different conflicting advice. Only against NT, only against trump, always on the lead, only when switching suit during the play, and now a new one: on lead from 4(+) length. My limited understanding of Rusinow is that it aimed to gain more clarity on ace (and king?) leads, while this 3-/4+ length split aims to gain more clarity on suit length when leading from an honour. Is this an accurate observation? And regardless of the answer, why is Rusinow more/less important against certain contracts than others?
  
• Of the agreements I've run into, the one that I found quite curious is attempting to give suit preference rather than attitude on trick one (barring certain circumstances). How can I tell whether this is better or worse on balance?

So far I've still only got the Slawinski book as the only source crunching actual numbers. But even something more qualitative would be nice, along the lines of "When using Polish leads, look for situation <X>. This is where they underperform."

[nullve]

DavidKok, on 2024-July-26, 12:32, said:

I've read a 2-page summary of the Obvious Shift Principle by Pamela and Matthew Granovetter - is there a more comprehensive source?

https://www.amazon.c...dp/0940257173]A Switch in Time

[blackshoe]

Rusinow leads date back to the 1930s. I don't know what the recommendation was then, but in the 1960s (I think) "The Journalist" wrote in The Bridge Journal a series of articles later published as Journalist Leads, in which the recommendation was to play Rusinow leads only against suits. Much more recently, Andrew Garnett, in Defensive Communications, recommends Rusinow vs. both suits and notrump, because, he says, that's easier on the memory.

[awm]

Rusinow creates a couple of issues, in particular:

1. If you lead a bare honor Kx or Qx it can cause a lot more confusion than standard leads.
2. There is some ambiguous card (usually the 9 but one can play it differently) where you might have the next higher but also might not.

#1 is the reason I prefer not to play Rusinow opposite suit contracts or in partners suit.

In exchange you do get some clarity on ace-empty vs suits (otherwise you are either leading ace from ace empty but also ace king, or you are leading king from both ace king and king queen). And you get the 3 vs 4 distinction vs NT. The latter seems more valuable to me; I do not lead from ace-empty very often against suit contracts.

[foobar]

awm, on 2024-July-29, 15:57, said:

Rusinow creates a couple of issues, in particular:

1. If you lead a bare honor Kx or Qx it can cause a lot more confusion than standard leads.
2. There is some ambiguous card (usually the 9 but one can play it differently) where you might have the next higher but also might not.

#1 is the reason I prefer not to play Rusinow opposite suit contracts or in partners suit.

+1 for the non recommendation vs. suit contracts. In addition to Obvious Shift, one method that sounds interesting is Kit Woolsey's carding at T1. On the lead of any card besides the Ace, spot cards 5,6,7 signal encouragement (in that order of emphasis), 2,3,4 suggest the lower suit, and 10, 9, 8 the higher suit. The Jack is default "stuck" in the absence of situations where underleading makes no sense.

Of course, like any other carding scheme, it likely has its downsides, but merits experimentation, especially coming from someone like Kit.

Another interesting topic is leads in the middle of the hand. I think that 2nd/4th through declarer, with coded T/9 makes sense.

[helene_t]

I am not so well versed in lead and carding theory so appologies if the below is nonsense. Anyway, here it goes:

David and I decided to play Polish leads and carding without exceptions. Originally we thought we planned to play attitude leads but then during one of our system discussion lunches the issue came up what to do with three small cards. Polish leads are quite simple and there is a nice book by Izdebski, Krzemien and Klinger (Deadly Defence) which uses Polish leads and carding. I would like to have a quiz book also, based on Polish leads and carding.

Polish leads are consistent with UDCA which at first I thought wasn't much of an issue (playing standard leads and udca carding you lead Xx but follow xX, but it should be possible to remember that!), but maybe it does make life a bit easier. Suppose you lead xXx (MDU as in Polish), then you complete the signal by following low from the remaining doubleton next time. That means that when you hold two small cards and declarer leads the suit, you just automatically leads the small regardless of whether you lead the suit, or it is declarer's first play of the suit, or his second play.

There would be one exception, though, namely if you have previously played an honour on declarer's first lead of the suit, when your holding was Hxx. If you play original count (as I think most UDCA pairs do) you now play high from the remaining doubleton. David and I play present count. Does anyone know what is standard in Poland?

But I wonder if it is any good to think in such an "automated" way. Maybe I should strive at always giving a bit of thought (two or three seconds) to every situations where my play might matter, rather than relying of reflexes such as "always low from small doubleton" ?

Even having agreed to play Polish leads and carding there are still a few things to sort out:

- is an attitude signal a suggestion (not) to lead the suit, or is it descriptive showing an honour (or on partner's lead of the ace against a suit contract possibly a doubleton)? I suppose the answer will always be that it can be both - I would sometimes give positive attitude for a strong suit which I don't want lead (I guard this suit, partner can safely discard from it) or from a weak suit which I do want lead (it looks like the other suits may be frozen, this suit is safe for passive defence)

- When does suit preference apply? There are obviously many situations where count signal is unlikely to help partner but might help declarer. We could give suit preference in those situations.

Working on partnership understanding w.r.t. bidding is easy. There will always be at least one of us who remembers the exact auction on a given hand we played IRL. And you have Cuebids or BID72. Defence we have practiced a bit by setting up BBO teaching tables, trying to condition on hands where we are likely to defend. Someone should make a Cuebids-like app for defense problems.

[akwoo]

I prefer standard leads, 4th best, udca carding, first discard usually upside down attitude. For some reason unknown to me, most folks around me play standard present count after the first trick in a suit.

I've tried a few times to switch to 3rd/5th leads vs suits but haven't managed to overcome the automemory.

Eventually some partner will convince me to play Smith Echo.

I want to try 2nd/4th at some point but have never convinced a partner.

The truth is that none of this really matters more than a few percent, with a lot of variance.

My suggestion to intermediates of the right level is that they switch their carding every few sessions because using a new carding method gets them to pay attention to the cards rather than reverting to defending without thinking.

[nullve]

I've come to believe that leading the smallest card from both xxx, Hxx, xxxx and Hxxx, like GiB does, is superior to anything else. Yes, that style creates some unsolvable problems for the defence, but it tends to be even more frustrating for declarer. (Those who disagree probably haven't played enough robot bridge on BBO. )