[Stephen Tu]

lamford, on 2015-September-27, 04:41, said:

I think SCUDA avoids using a possibly crucial high card when you want the suit led or continued for the attitude part, and you are most likely to have three cards in a suit that you are giving count in, so that reverse count will also more often waste a possibly crucial high card?

One is more likely able to spare the middle card from 3 than the top card from two to show count when the top card is too valuable for trick taking purposes. So I think upside down count is able to show true count more often. It is for this reason that even standard carding has had count reversed in the trump suit. Upside-down count players just play it the same way in every suit.

So I don't see any reason for standard count when following suit 2nd/4th hand. If playing a present count card as a lead or a discard, there are sometimes some unblocking situations (high from doubleton remaining) that standard can be better.

[Zelandakh]

Stephen Tu, on 2015-September-27, 09:40, said:

It is for this reason that even standard carding has had count reversed in the trump suit.

Sadly that is not the reason. The truth is that this signal originally showed an odd number of trumps and a desire to ruff. The peter was meant to wake partner up to the ruffing part more than to the count. This simply extended to showing count more generally when players decided that the original signal was too limited.

[kuhchung]

upside down count is superior when signaling count for 4 as well.

[helene_t]

In Helge Vinje's "presisjonmotspill i bridge" (pressure defence in bridge), the author describes the Norwegian std-count-rev-attitude system together with a lead system that is the same. While his book is not meant for beginners, I think it has merrits to teach beginners a system with symmetry between leads and carding. And almost everyone leads high from doubleton and low encourages.

Ron Klinger gave an ammusing argument for teaching std attitude: A high card draws more attention so it is less likely to be missed by partner.

There are situations in which the natural carding is standard carding, such as when unblocking an honour doubleton or when playing the queen under partner's ace in order to show the jack. The latter has many analogues such as for example discarding an ace to show the king.

[barmar]

Even people who play upside-down carding still play that following with an honor usually promises the card below it.

[johnu]

UdcaDenny, on 2013-April-17, 09:23, said:

When asking standard carding users whats the advantage they cannot answer. Most just say I learned that from start without giving it a thought. If you ask me why I use udca its very easy to answer. Save your high cards.

Yes, the concept is throw losers, keep winners. If your signal ends up costing a trick because you signaled with a winner, that is an example of a bad signal.

[gordontd]

barmar, on 2015-October-02, 08:41, said:

Even people who play upside-down carding still play that following with an honor usually promises the card below it.

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say here: usually when you play an honour when following suit you deny the card below it.

[Zelandakh]

gordontd, on 2015-October-03, 01:20, said:

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say here: usually when you play an honour when following suit you deny the card below it.

Not in the situations described be Helene though, such as discarding an honour to show the one below it.

[gordontd]

Zelandakh, on 2015-October-03, 04:25, said:

Not in the situations described be Helene though, such as discarding an honour to show the one below it.

Ah, discarding, not following.

[barmar]

If partner leads the Ace (from AKx), and you have QJ, don't you play the Q?

[gordontd]

barmar, on 2015-October-03, 14:55, said:

If partner leads the Ace (from AKx), and you have QJ, don't you play the Q?

Playing UDCA I'd play the lowest card I had.

[MickyB]

I much prefer standard carding to UDCA.

In some situations, standard attitude is clearly better.

On the lead of an ace, you can nearly always afford your second highest card from a queen-high holding. There are plenty of situations where you can't afford your second highest card to discourage from jack-high holdings. In the context of the small differences we are talking about, this one is significant.

Also, as previously mentioned, there's the "unblock but encourage" position that is particularly relevant when there is a singleton honour in the dummy.

Switching situationally is obviously fine in theory but many find it difficult in practice.

Sometimes you can only afford low discards

In my experience, if you can only afford a low, discouraging discard, partner tries to work out what to switch to from what they know already. This is desirable; by this time you've usually got a lot of information about the hand. A high discard, made relatively rarely, serves as a wake-up call to partner.

If you can only afford a low, encouraging discard, partner is far more likely to take it as a strong signal, and switch aggressively to the suit you have encouraged.

Confusion over following with an honour

As discussed above, even playing UDCA, there are many positions where an honour that is not trying to win a trick is "top of touching". This is just one example of a position where a high card is not discouraging. I think this is very poorly understood, even amongst world-class players.

- Partner leads the ace. Dummy has QT98. Playing UDCA, what do you play from J7? What do you play from J73?
- Partner leads the ace, which you know is likely to be AKxxx. Dummy has T9xx. What do you play from J2? How can partner distinguish this from Q2?

I offer these situations as evidence that the jack should still be played from a doubleton as an even/encouraging card. [Would any UDCAers out there describe this as "standard"?]

- I seem to remember that a top English partnership had a misunderstanding about what should be played from QT9 or similar. I think it may have been an Allfrey partnership from the Gold Cup a couple of years back, perhaps someone else can remember the precise position?
- If you discard a jack, is that top of touching or discouraging? What if you discard a ten?