[inquiry]

kgr, on May 11 2005, 11:10 AM, said:

Quote

And yes, people playing standard carding often have tempo problems too... this is not limited to carding system, it just seems to occur more frequently in my experience with O/E carding... maybe ohters have different views.

I don't see any reason why O/E discards would give more discard issues then standard discards.
Discarding on ♥: I can
ask ♦
with a low even ♣,
a high even ♠
or an odd ♦. I don't think this gives more issues as standard discards.

Because sometimes, the only suit you can afford to discard from is diamond, and the only suit you want lead is a ♣, but your only cards you can discard in ♦ are the: ♦8-7-5-3.

If yo discard the ♦8, that looks like a high even asking for a ♠, if you discard an odd card it looks like you are asking for a ♦. There is not a card that "easily" ask for a spade. Of course, an established partnership will have some agreement related to a low odd or high odd depending upon rather partner can work out what the problem might be, and will be played fairly quickly. But what happens here, with so much info packed into rather it is an odd or even card, too many players (not you of course), will hesitate, fiddle, then finally discard teh diamond 3. Their partner magically become kreskin and work out that, partner didn't have a low even diamond, so the low odd on means don't lead diamond and do lead a club. If they wanted a diamond lead? They will play the diamond 3 at near the speed of light, even from this holding, and their parnters don't switch to a club but find the diamond return.

This does not mean similar things don't happen with other discarding systems, they in fact do. It is just that odd/even discards these come up more frequently (to fully signal in diamonds to the other three suits you need both a high and low even, and a odd card. Often one these requirements is missing. The analgous situation is with lavinthal discards, where you can only afford a diamond discard, but you want a diamond lead. Here a high diamond ask for spade (no regard to even odd), a low diamond ask for club. So most will discard some middlish card and try to make it look middle side as soon as possible. Another case is the player with Qx and you lead the ACE. Some standard signaling partners go into a trance, and think and think and think, then play low. Their partners usually have no trouble working it out.

Ben

[mike777]

As Ben mentions, hopefully with "OS" by the time you make first discard you have so much information that with your bridge common sense and experience you know p is playing a "forced card". Hopefully playing frequent suit preference will lead to greatly improved results with little brain strain. That is the goal anyway and why I reprinted Larry's comment.

[luke warm]

the granovetters have 'rules' that govern which suit is the os.. if you go to www.bridgetoday.com you can subscribe to their online magazine (and to me it's way worth it) *and* download the os book (pdf format)... usually there are 2 or 3 other special offers

as mike says, following to the very first trick can often form a pretty good blueprint of partner's hand... 'course sometimes he just has squat, but that's life

[Fluffy]

inquiry, on May 11 2005, 01:54 PM, said:

This is NOT to say that all o/e players do this (in fact I have played o/e), or that most do it. It just that some do it. And this is not to say that they do it on purpose or that their partners realize that they are taking advantage of the speed of play of the card

99% of cheating in bridge is not made on purpose of course!

I guess I am not the only one who has seen a beginner alerting partner's 2♥ opening as 'weak because she has used the stop card'.

Quote

System A: We will use high cards to encourgae and low cards to discourage. The cards 2-5 are "low" and 6-9 are "high"

System B: We will use even cards to encourage and odd cards to discourage. 2,4,6,8 are "even" and 3,5,7,9 are "odd".

System C: We will use prime numbers to encourage and complex numbers to discourage. 2,3,5,and 7 are "prime" and 4,6,8,9 are "complex"

Prime numbers?, lol, I could foresee the pain of explaining this to some of my regular opponents who would never understand what I am up to, and probably will finnnish thinking either I am joking, cheating, or just stupid.

but damn it sounds fun, I'll ask my partner to start using this :-P

[david_c]

Quote

System C: We will use prime numbers to encourage and complex numbers to discourage.

Great idea - this could add an entirely new dimension to the game ...

"Partner followed with a discouraging 2+5i of hearts."

[Free]

Why not use fibonaci numbers: 2, 3, 5, 8. These already have something to do with relaysystems...

[keylime]

I use O/S in my p'ship - it is rather a nice system.

However, part of O/S's success is understanding the opening leads that go with it, not just 3rd hand play.

With regards to the BIL - I don't think that O/S is really for that genre because not only do you have to attempt to condense a whole book but the concept requires the understanding of when to give count and basic s/p strategies. Many folks don't have those needed skills yet.

We use 2nd/4th in suits, attitude leads at NT, with MUD and udcasp with rev. s/p lav 1st disc. at suits, straight UD att at NT.

[luke warm]

Free, on May 12 2005, 06:06 AM, said:

Why not use fibonaci numbers: 2, 3, 5, 8.    These already have something to do with relaysystems...

hmmm... how bout encrypting them? say partner leads an ace... how do you signal your suit preference? find the nearest lucas number (11)... identify the numbers surrounding it (7 and 18)... multiply those by one another, square the 11, and subtract (you don't have to actually do this, it's always 5) ... if the led card is >5, subtract the two (the ace would obviously be 13, etc)... if the answer is odd, partner is calling for the lowest non-trump.. if even, the highest... if the led card is <5, add the two... now an odd result calls for a red suit, even for a black suit

or, you could just play standard carding

[Winstonm]

I believe in playing the most complex carding system I can devise in combination with the dumbest partner I can find - that way if anything goes wrong I can point out his hideous error and he can't prove me wrong.

[Al_U_Card]

Like all systemic agreements, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. The classic attitude signal to pard's lead is whether or not he should continue the suit. OS stipulates that if you discourage the lead, you are happy with a switch to the weakest (non-trump) suit in dummy. Kxx is weaker than JTxx etc. Via con dios

[mikestar]

Al_U_Card, on May 18 2005, 03:34 PM, said:

Like all systemic agreements, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing. The classic attitude signal to pard's lead is whether or not he should continue the suit. OS stipulates that if you discourage the lead, you are happy with a switch to the weakest (non-trump) suit in dummy. Kxx is weaker than JTxx etc. Via con dios

Point well taken, but OS in its full complexity is simpler than any non-beginner bidding system. It is well within the scope of a regular partnership, it simply needs to be studied and practiced.

[Al_U_Card]

mikestar, on May 19 2005, 01:14 AM, said:

Al_U_Card, on May 18 2005, 03:34 PM, said:

Like all systemic agreements, a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing.  The classic attitude signal to pard's lead is whether or not he should continue the suit.  OS stipulates that if you discourage the lead, you are happy with a switch to the weakest (non-trump) suit in dummy. Kxx is weaker than JTxx etc. Via con dios 

Point well taken, but OS in its full complexity is simpler than any non-beginner bidding system. It is well within the scope of a regular partnership, it simply needs to be studied and practiced.

When I played regularly, I read the Granovetter's book and used OS with as many of my pards as would have it. It always worked fabulously and wasn't hard to apply in 95% of the cases. Would use it anytime with anyone, but got tired of explaining it to pick-up pards, so......

[whereagles]

Well, one must be careful not to follow the Granovetters' solutions too close. I once did that when playing "obvious shift" methods and handed over a slam due to lack of count signals.

[Gerben42]

Well you need to know when to use it and when not.
I have found OS and frequent suit preference work great for me. I can recommend it to everyone with sufficient experience to do something useful with it.

But: Suit preferencel is one of the most complicated things there is in bridge. Use it wisely.

[mike777]

whereagles, on May 20 2005, 03:22 AM, said:

Well, one must be careful not to follow the Granovetters' solutions too close. I once did that when playing "obvious shift" methods and handed over a slam due to lack of count signals.

Agree nothing works 100% of time but if you can remember hand and post, thanks.

Count is very rare, here are some exceptions.

"Suit-preference signal can be used for length, to help partner keep the right suit in the endgame(eg., versus 7nt, following up the line in a suit led by dummy or declarer may signify more length in a lower ranking suit than in a higher ranking suit.)

Exceptions to the OS signal at trick one.
1. Versus notrump, if dummy wins the trick holding QJX or JTX we give count if we have no high honors in any suit at all. (Partner with al lthe strength will guess it is count).
2. Versus as slam, on the lead of an A-K we give count.
3. Versus the five level, when we are known to hold 5 cards or more in the suit led, we add to our Attitude/OS signal a count card by playing an odd card for an odd number or an even card for an even number. For example, odd-high=odd number, encouraging."

[whereagles]

mike777, on May 20 2005, 05:29 PM, said:

whereagles, on May 20 2005, 03:22 AM, said:

  handed over a slam due to lack of count signals.

Agree nothing works 100% of time but if you can remember hand and post, thanks.

I don't remember the hand, but the situation was simple. Opps were playing 6NT after an unrevealing auction.

At some stage I needed to make a discard, and from the play of the cards, declarer had either a 4333 or a 4234. I couldn't tell which because me and pard were playing "suit preference all the way", so no count. I discarded hoping for a 4234 because that shape was more likely than the 4333. Wrong choice... lol.

[mike777]

whereagles, on May 20 2005, 02:06 PM, said:

mike777, on May 20 2005, 05:29 PM, said:

whereagles, on May 20 2005, 03:22 AM, said:

  handed over a slam due to lack of count signals.

Agree nothing works 100% of time but if you can remember hand and post, thanks.

I don't remember the hand, but the situation was simple. Opps were playing 6NT after an unrevealing auction.

At some stage I needed to make a discard, and from the play of the cards, declarer had either a 4333 or a 4234. I couldn't tell which because me and pard were playing "suit preference all the way", so no count. I discarded hoping for a 4234 because that shape was more likely than the 4333. Wrong choice... lol.

Maybe this was a case where suit pref should have shown length as in the 7nt example, hard to tell, oh well.

[Al_U_Card]

Interesting. I mostly found that once the initial suit preference signal was given that 99% of the issues were resolved and std signalling worked fine. I once kibbed a match between Molson/Baran vs Passel/Lair and they never seemed to give obvious count signals. Not something I could reasonably aspire to I'm afraid.

[Double !]

I suggest that one read the Eric Rodwell Interview posted at the Bridge Matters web page, particularly with regards to signalling.
IMO, pick the method that you are most comfortable with (that comes most naturally or instinctively to you) and go from there.

More importantly: COUNT! like, count to 13!!!!!

[fifee]

Bobby Goldman and Paul Soloway who played together for 20 years used standard carding with very little count. Their first priority was to show smith echo by either defender if it was not obvious whether they "liked" the lead or not. They would play an unecessarily high card at the first opportunity when following suit asap to say, "Yes, I liked your lead or my lead." They used smith versus all contracts, too, not just NT.

Suit preference was a big part of their defense, as well, whenever they could. Bobby always said there is no carding technique that beats thinking at the table though.

Patty Anderson