[42]

When my partner and me discussed our carding, I wondered what nowadays is common sense for a signal in the trump suit.
It would be nice to hear some reasons for the decision

Personally, I like Lavinthal, but we (or better my partner ) decided for a combined carding: high - low with 2 trumps, the message is "partner, I cannot trump when you cannot win the 1. round in trumps", and low-high-middle for a suit preference in the highest suit, low-middle-high for a suit preference in the lowest suit.
Whether this is good or bad, I cannot tell because I cannot remember that it worked

[Hanoi5]

I was gonna go with no signal, but I think each case has to be thought out carefully. I'd use either no signal or lenght in trump suit, the latter to show whether I can ruff.

[kenrexford]

Context.

That said, you missed one! My favorite used to be Vinje.

You would signal hand pattern in one signal. If the hand pattern was one odd and three evens (4432, 4441, 2263), you would low-high trumps (or reverse as preferred). If the hand pattern was three odds and one even (3334, 3154), high-low.

[helene_t]

Vinje or Smith or Lavinthal.

Trump count signals are more likely to help declarer, I think, so to use them one needs to be able to identify the situations in which they will help p more without tanking. I can't do that I'm afraid.

[gwnn]

Vinje sounds very fun. Otherwise it's a good idea to just randomize your spot play, particularly in their suits.

[655321]

Vinje is not a good method IMO because it makes it very easy for declarer to count the hand.

[helene_t]

655321, on Apr 18 2008, 02:17 PM, said:

Vinje is not a good method IMO because it makes it very easy for declarer to count the hand.

A Vijne signal says whether you had one or three suits with an odd number of cards. If little is known about defenders' distribution a priori, I don't think this helps declarer much.

OTOH if little is known about declarer's distribution either, it may not be of much use.

[Free]

I prefer to play signals dependant of the situation. Sometimes count is necessary, sometimes suit prefference is necessary...

[pclayton]

Trump suit preference can be useful, as long as you don't tip off your hand to a good player. This can frequently be combined with count, depending on the value of your spots.

[jillybean]

Hi Caren Nice to see your posts again!

[kfay]

My partner and I use SP.

I've never been sorry about this.

[skjaeran]

Depends upon context, and who I'm playing with.

With several former partners we used trump echo - hi/lo to show 3(+) trumps and an ability to ruff.

These days I mostly play suit preference, but count if we're playing a power defence shortening declarer. So partner will know when to pull trumps and claim.

[Echognome]

Amazingly I don't play trump echo or foster echo, and only occasionally play smith echo.

In answer to the OP, it's completely situational for me. Generally I would prefer to be able to randomize my pips in trumps than be forced to give away my hand. I certainly cannot imagine using it for count, when declarer's trump length is normally the item of information best known about his hand.

I remember playing that if partner lead a trump, then my pips were suit preference if not forced, with the idea being that if partner is leading trumps, he'll have suits pretty well covered and will want to know the best way to get out of his hand.

[jchiu]

Which partner(s) of yours makes you play the convention named after Linda's husband from Hixson, Tenn.?

[andy_h]

either SP or showing an odd number, but we don't do it religiously