[helene_t]

There appear to be some Norwegians who play so-called Vinje(Sp?) carding: Whenever declarer's holding is almost known, play an odd card (or high, or whatever) to indicate 3 suit with an odd number of cards. The idea is that while this may be sufficient for partner to identify the complete layout, declarer may not be able to use that information at an early stage.

However, if partner knows you are, say, either 4432 or 4423, such a carding method wouldn't help partner at all but might help declarer.

Now suppose that declarers excact lengths in two suit are known, for example
1NT-2♣
2♥-3NT
4♠-pass
You could agree to indicate the parity of the higest-ranking known-length suit plus the highest-ranking unknown-length-suit. So in this case you discard odd with an odd number of pointed cards.

Is this a good idea?

[Double !]

you spelled it correctly Helge Vinje. The book is sitting around here somewhere in this mess.
i don't know the whole carding system, but the part i know involves how you play trumps. lo-hi to show 3 suits with odd number length and 1 of even length, and hi-lo to show one of even length and 3 of odd number length (or is it vice versa).
This approach forms the basis for prism signals (unfortunately considered to be encrypted carding according to a couple of directors whom I asked: I had to explain them. They had never heard of them.) The cool part of prism signals is that they also indicate which is your one odd or your one even-length suit. You can get the info at Dan_Neill's site, last time I looked. A lot of mental effort involved.

[han]

Double !, on Jul 23 2005, 09:07 AM, said:

lo-hi to show 3 suits with odd number length and 1 of even length, and hi-lo to show one of even length and 3 of odd number length (or is it vice versa).

Err

[keylime]

I used to play Prism Signals which has Vinje parity as part of its premise. Rather nice concepts.

[DrTodd13]

There are two problems. First is the memory work. Second, if you want to play prism signals you have to give up trump suit preference which, IMO, is asking too much. Getting the right lead on certain hands is more important that giving exact shape especially when I can typically get all the shape information that I need by the critical point in the hand anyway.

[1eyedjack]

I agree with DrTodd13.

There is a lot more to Vinje's signalling system than the trump signal, for which the author seems to be most famous and which in my opinion is one of the lesser achievements of his book.

Vinje I think falls into the trap of many authors espousing their pet system: that of hunting around for hands that illustrate the benefits of the system, whilst conveniently overlooking to illustrate any potential weaknesses, such as to mention other hands where either ( a ) the information disclosed is more valuable to declarer than to the partner of the signaller (and you have to be quite brave to know when to false card the Vinje trump signal) or ( b ) alternative methods would have been more beneficial to the defence. In the latter category I reckon that the Smith Echo and similar methods (if properly used) have a greater benefit in the long term.

Having said all that, personally I quite like the Vinje system as a whole, but mostly because if I sit down opposite a new partner who is also familiar with the book we can just agree on "Vinje" as a package and not waste any further time discussing signalling methods, thereby allowing us to use the limited available time to hone up on other areas of agreement in the auction.