[1eyedjack]

Your partner leads K (from KQ) in a suit in which dummy holds Jxx.

With regular partners I have usually given a count signal, on the grounds that if the King wins I am marked with the Ace so it seems pointless to use a small card to distinguish its presence or absence.

The problem with this method is that it provides declarer with a safe choice of ducking trick 1 when holding the Ace, confident of a continuation. I can envisage hands where for timing and/or communication purposes he might prefer to win the Jack before the Ace, or lose the first trick in the suit rather than the second.

Declarer is of course risking a switch, however unlikely, even against a count signal, so it is not a play to be executed routinely. That said, I am thinking of changing to attitude signal in this situation because I have been caught out several times (including when declarer ducked unnecessarily, which is really irritating).

What do the rest of you do here?

[gwnn]

Q from KQx.., K from KQJ..., Q for attitude, K for count.

you can read about this at

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ygw3EUS...result#PPA37,M1

introduced to me by Gnasher.

[1eyedjack]

Don't know if that helps much.

What you appear to be saying is that from KQ without the Jack you should always ask for attitude. Whether you lead K from that holding or Q from that holding is irrelevant. In the situation posed in the original post, the appearance of the Jack in dummy puts the leader's holding beyond any doubt that might have been ambiguous from the leader's viewpoint before dummy flops.

I have a general problem with leading systems that ask for a particular signal before dummy appears. Too often the leader does not know whether he wants an attitude or count signal until dummy appears. I come across the principle more often when leading Ace for attitude and King for count, but the theme is the same either way.

In the situation originally posed, an attitude signal is otiose once the Jack appears in dummy, assuming that declarer will win the Ace at trick 1 as he will do the vast majority of the time. If the location of the Ace and Jack will be clarified at trick 1 without the requirement of a signal, then an attitude signal becomes a waste of time. Leader cannot know that at the point of leading the honour before the Jack appears, of course.

Or, to put it another way, if partner leads the Q from KQ, "asking for attitude", and AJT were to appear in dummy instead of Jxx, would you still give an attitude signal?

There is an argument that an attitude signal allows the signaller to show or deny preference for a switch not just by reference to is holding in the suit led but also by reference to the entire hand. I think that is quite a strong argument for attitude signals even when you cannot possibly hold a missing honour in the suit led, but I am not convinced that it is compelling. I could be wrong there, and I certainly have my doubts in that area

[Codo]

If declarer ducks, he wins 2 tricks, when the opening leader continues the suit. But he wins just one if opener switches. If he wins and lead the suit later (by himself or a defender) he wins two tricks too, without any risk.

So, why should declarer duck? It is possible, but quite seldom that declarer has a hand where a duck is needed. (F.E. when the suit may break 5-2 and there is no entry to the long suit). But I would not care too much about this very special case.

[zgrywus]

Codo, on Oct 5 2008, 07:13 AM, said:

So, why should declarer duck? It is possible, but quite seldom that declarer has a hand where a duck is needed. (F.E. when the suit may break 5-2 and there is no entry to the long suit). But I would not care too much about this very special case.

Not so seldom IMO. Happened to me as well, declarer duck when he has 8 tricks (playing 3Nt) and the J suppose to be the 9th trick, But his holding is xxx-xxx at a side suit, so switch at the 3rd trick could be obvious (or at least much more probably) than at the 2nd trick. With my regular partner we came back to use attitude signals. But I'm also curious what the rest think.

[benlessard]

Quote

With regular partners I have usually given a count signal, on the grounds that if the King wins I am marked with the Ace so it seems pointless to use a small card to distinguish its presence or absence.

I think that this is a case where count isnt really more useful than attitude or SP.