[Free]

Perhaps a silly question, but how do you pronounce "UDCA"? Is it the letters, or "udka", or something else?

[the hog]

Yew Dee See A
The letters.

[paulg]

In the UK it is normally pronounced "reverse signals".

The popularity of the term 'udca' is probably increasing here due to online bridge.

[Free]

Thanks!

[gnasher]

I've heard it pronounced as a word rhyming approximately with "rudder". I think that was a player from somewhere in South America, but I can't remember where. I think that the normal English pronunciation is the same as The Hog's or Cardsharp's

[gwnn]

I always say 'udka' i.e. oodcka, I think it's funnier than just reading the letters.

[cherdanno]

"upside-down carding". If you want to be short, "upside-down".

[gnasher]

Some people seem to enjoy dragging it out as long as possible, saying "upside-down count and attitude".

[JLOGIC]

upside down for me

[hanp]

Low-high even or on for me, when I say it in Dutch.

When playing online I think of it as oodka.

[billw55]

On a side note, I have run into a fair number of players that use upside down attitude (low card enourages) but standard count (hi-lo = even). Is this a common practice among experts? If not, why?

[pooltuna]

Free, on Jul 23 2010, 03:07 AM, said:

Perhaps a silly question, but how do you pronounce "UDCA"?  Is it the letters, or "udka", or something else?

IMO pronunciation of an acronym rather than using just the letters requires a sensible sounding word which will not be confused with others as well as ease of pronunciation of the acronym and IMO UDCA does not pass the latter test so I use "you dee cee a"

EDIT: This is of course just a limitation of the English language

[Free]

billw55, on Jul 23 2010, 01:56 PM, said:

On a side note, I have run into a fair number of players that use upside down attitude (low card enourages) but standard count (hi-lo = even). Is this a common practice among experts? If not, why?

I played that once, it was horible! I lead an Ace and got high. Is this even or discouraging? If you play A asks att, K asks count, then no such problems, but we hadn't agreed on that.

[jjbrr]

in my head it's udka

when someone asks what carding i play, i tell them upside down count and attitude.

[jdonn]

gnasher, on Jul 23 2010, 05:52 AM, said:

Some people seem to enjoy dragging it out as long as possible, saying "upside-down count and attitude".

Or they enjoy their opponents being able to be quite sure that suit preference is not included?

[barmar]

pooltuna, on Jul 23 2010, 10:02 AM, said:

Free, on Jul 23 2010, 03:07 AM, said:

Perhaps a silly question, but how do you pronounce "UDCA"?  Is it the letters, or "udka", or something else?

IMO pronunciation of an acronym rather than using just the letters requires a sensible sounding word which will not be confused with others as well as ease of pronunciation of the acronym and IMO UDCA does not pass the latter test so I use "you dee cee a"

EDIT: This is of course just a limitation of the English language

By definition, if it's not pronounceable, it's not an acronym, it's an initialism. An acronym is a word that's formed from the initials of other words, e.g. SCUBA or LASER. An initialism is an abbreviation formed from initials which is pronounced by saying the letters, e.g. CPU or PC. Although if the pronunciation "ud-ka" becomes common, I guess this will become an acronym.

When I'm discussing system with a new partner, I'll say "Do you play upside-down?" But when an opponent asks for our carding, I'll say it in full, "upside down count and attitude".

[gnasher]

billw55, on Jul 23 2010, 01:56 PM, said:

On a side note, I have run into a fair number of players that use upside down attitude (low card enourages) but standard count (hi-lo = even).  Is this a common practice among experts?  If not, why?

It's quite common in England, and what I normally play.

I think the rationale is that the situations where you normally give count correlate with the situations where you might need to unblock from a (remaining) doubleton.

I play it just because it's what I'm used to.

Free, on Jul 23 2010, 03:03 PM, said:

I played that once, it was horible!  I lead an Ace and got high.  Is this even or discouraging?  If you play A asks att, K asks count, then no such problems, but we hadn't agreed on that.

Yes, it's horrible having to defend without knowing what your carding methods are.

This post has been edited by gnasher: 2010-July-23, 08:37

[gnasher]

jdonn, on Jul 23 2010, 03:07 PM, said:

Or they enjoy their opponents being able to be quite sure that suit preference is not included?

Yes, perhaps I'm misjudging some of them. I think most of them just like saying the words though.

Anyway, if someone says "upside down", you can be confident that they're referring only to their count and their attitude. Nobody would give such a misleading answer if they actually played upside-down suit preference, would they?

[barmar]

How many fingers do you need to count the pairs that play upside-down suit preference?

There are obviously theoretical benefits to upside-down attitude (you don't waste potentially useful high spot cards). Upside-down count usually goes along with it because you typically want to encourage with a doubleton to suggest a ruff. But is there any particular reason to play upside-down suit preference?

I think they do it just to be different and confuse opponents.

[Mbodell]

billw55, on Jul 23 2010, 04:56 AM, said:

On a side note, I have run into a fair number of players that use upside down attitude (low card enourages) but standard count (hi-lo = even). Is this a common practice among experts? If not, why?

I don't claim to be an expert, but I play this with a few partners (upside down attitude, standard count, and standard discards).

I definitely prefer standard discards as I tend to discard cards from suits I don't like (and thus discard lower cards). For standard count I think you have to think how often will it be bad to play hi-low or low-high with a certain number of cards. For me, if I have 3 cards in a suit, I want to keep the highest 2 (generally), where as if I have 4 cards in a suit, I can still keep the highest 2 playing standard count.

You do have to figure out sometimes if it is a count or attitude situation, for instance with 2 small when partner leads the A from AK, but overall I like that.

And I pronounce udca as ewe-duh-ka, although I'd more commonly just say upside-down.