[cwiggins]

My partner and I are trying Lavinthal discards, and a couple of isses have come up.

First: When discarding a suit to give preference and not for a ruff situation:

1) Do you use order of discards to differentiate commands to switch from informatory?

2) If not, is the preference a command or just an invitation?

Hy Lavinthal's "Defense Strategy in Bridge" said that suit preference are commands but a middle card means "no command": you might have something or nothing in one or both side suits, but you don't have enough in the suit to give a command. Example: if discarding from the 862:
8 = command for higher suit
2 = command for lower suit
6 = no strong preference

In "Switch In Time," the Granovetters give "screams"--a command--and "preferences"--informing partner of a feature--depending on the order of the discards. Example:
862 = scream (command) for the highest
268 = scream (command) for the lowest
826 = informatory for the higher
286 = informatory for the lower

Sabine Auken ("I Love the Game"; 82) also seems to use the order of the discards to separate commands from informatory or invitation. So the modern trend seems to be use discard order to separate commands and invitiations (with the first discard guaranteeing an invitation).

Second: when discarding on partner's winner, what does the discard mean? For example, partner leads the AK in a suit and you have a singleton in the suit.

If you are playing notrump, a Lavinthal discard may make sense. But if you are playing a suit contract, then presumably both partner's suit and the trump suit are eliminated, which means that only two suits are left. So maybe a discard should show attitude?

Other than the references I've identified above, I haven't been able to find any references. Other references, data, or experiences would be welcome.

Thanks.

[NickRW]

Well, some of the more expert players might like to comment, but I find, playing with intermediates that playing the first discard as a suggestion only (even if you want to "scream"), works OK - or at least works OK at that level.

I can also get them to signal attitude (or indeed anything we want to signal) on partner's lead. But getting them to signal count (or whatever) on declarer's (or take notice of parner's signal even if one is made) is a pain in the ****. So, based on that experience, I probably wouldn't want to make discard signalling more complex - but again this applies at that level.

Nick

[suokko]

All encouraging/discouraging and suit preference signals are only suggestion and partner should use judgment and counting to choose between options. Signals are used to make partner know our and declarers count and honors as early as possible in hand which then makes defending nearly double dummy problem.

When playing in a partnership that has huge skill level difference signals by stronger defender are commands and signals by weaker defender are only to show the hand for stronger defender.