[Trick13]

Against a suit contract, partner leads a King asking for count (udca).
Dummy comes down with Qx and you have, say, 8642.
Partner is likely to have 5+ here: with AKxx he would likely have led the Ace asking for attitude about the Queen.
You play the 2, and partner follows up with the Ace.

What card do you smoothly follow with to help partner read you for 4 rather than 2? Or do you assume that partner can read the situation and play a suit preference card?

[manudude03]

A common solution to that is to play the 4 at trick 1, and the next card would be suit preference (partner will almost certainly be able to work out that 4 then 2 isn't from an odd holding). You could also keep the 2 hidden at trick 2 if you are concerned about the possibility, and partner will be aware that the 2 is still out.

[Vampyr]

We usually give false count with four.

[WesleyC]

99% of the time in this situation I think it's best to give unambiguous count (e.g. 2 followed by SP on the next round) and leave partner to make a sensible choice based the all the information. Between their hand, the auction, the dummy, declarer's pips and the potential meaning of the suit preference signal they should almost always be able to work that you have 4 hearts. This is especially true against a weaker declarer who might not false-card their pips.

One of the main advantages of always(*) signalling this way is that partner can take a lot of inference from the pips you play on other hands. For example, any other combination of low/high (not including the 2) is unambiguously a doubleton.

Partner's key decision might come at trick 2 rather than trick 3 (for example if they have 6Hs and must choose between cashing a second heart or switching). In this situation they will suspect that the 2 is more likely from a 4c holding (and a higher spot like 4 or 6 would guarantee that a second heart is cashing).

[Trick13]

Vampyr, on 2015-May-19, 08:55, said:

We usually give false count with four.

I'd be super nervous about this. Might not partner, holding AKJxx and believing us to have 3, think it safe to cash a third round to force dummy, or doggedly hold onto the J until the end of the hand, expecting to take the last trick?

[Trick13]

WesleyC, on 2015-May-19, 11:53, said:

99% of the time in this situation I think it's best to give unambiguous count (e.g. 2 followed by SP on the next round) and leave partner to make a sensible choice based the all the information. Between their hand, the auction, the dummy, declarer's pips and the potential meaning of the suit preference signal they should almost always be able to work that you have 4 hearts. This is especially true against a weaker declarer who might not false-card their pips.

One of the main advantages of always(*) signalling this way is that partner can take a lot of inference from the pips you play on other hands. For example, any other combination of low/high (not including the 2) is unambiguously a doubleton.

Partner's key decision might come at trick 2 rather than trick 3 (for example if they have 6Hs and must choose between cashing a second heart or switching). In this situation they will suspect that the 2 is more likely from a 4c holding (and a higher spot like 4 or 6 would guarantee that a second heart is cashing).

I like this. I had thought that maybe you could play second highest on the next round, so there was a pip missing to suggest to partner you had four, but this won't work if you have a high doubleton - you play 2 then 8 and the 7 is still at large - did you start with 82 or 9872.