Mid-hand carding -pinpoint the communication process!

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that one of the biggest sections of your system notes might be the section headed by "carding". Indeed it is an important part of the communication scheme, essential to figure out who has what when on defense you have precious little time to develop your tricks. After all, the opps have announced the balance of power or a source of tricks due to a powerful trump suit.

There will be times when you wish to fool your declarer, knowing your partner can figure stuff out, but we'll defer that to when we've all won the blue ribbons once or twice. Before that, assume that good communication between you and your partner will foil declarer's plans every single time, or at least won't let you drop the overtrick.

Mid-hand carding has it's own unique rules. Whether playing standard or udca, the midhand carding remains the same unless specified different within the partnership:

1) In general I give attitude (udca or standard per agreement) on the suits we lead. I give a count card on the suits declarer attacks. This remains true throughout the hand after the opening lead on non-trump plays.

2) I you lead a suit mid-hand, you lead low from interest. So, if you hold an honor in the suit, lead low; if you hold junk, lead some high card. It tells your partner where your sources of tricks might be for the defense. For example, suppose you hold 973 in one suit and AQ5 in another and you don't see a K of your strong suit in dummy. Exit the 7 of the off suit telling partner "don't lead this suit back, think of something else". Partner will figure it out.

3) If the attitude of the suit is known lead a count card "fourth best". Suppose you lead an A and see the K in dummy and partner encourages most likely holding the Q. --lead back a "fourth best" remaining count card. Suppose you led the A against a preempt from AT742 and partner encourages with the K in dummy and you agree. Now lead the count card 4 "fourth best" from the original holing. Why? So the pair knows what's cashing and you can make appropriate switches. Remember attitude is known.

One would continue with the 2 from A1042 or the 7 from A72. Note that these are the same cards one would return if partner led the suit to you and you were returning the suit.


4) One of the favorite things expert players like to do is run their long suit so the opponents are forced to guess what to save. I haven't been caught in that a long time --Know why? My partnerships give a clear attitude signal at the first opportunity. "I'm saving/discarding this suit partner". This card is now followed by a count card (odd or even number) Most of my partnerships figure it out from there.

5) Make sure to discuss what to do with a singleton in the dummy. My preference is to continue "attitude". A discouraging card means I want you to switch to the suit in dummy where you can see tricks coming for our side. An unusual high card means "make an unusual shift, partner", most likely to the strong suit in dummy --for a ruff or isolation or something. Make sure to discuss this however, not every partnership prefers this method.

A fun thing to do is go over a set or two you've played with your favorite parnter and talk about carding and what message you are conveying as you lead, pitch and follow. You'll be amazed by how smooth that conversation piece is once the kinks get worked out.

Hope this helps. Ask if you have questions!