In the card game of contract bridge, partners defending against a contract may play particular cards in a manner which gives a signal or coded meaning to guide their subsequent card play; also referred to as carding.
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Methods of signaling have evolved over time and fall into two broad categories - standard signals or their more modern equivalents referred to as reverse or upside down signals. Partnerships decide on which methods to adopt and must disclose them to their opponents. There are three types of signals:
Use is dependent upon the context of the contract, prior play, who has led to the current trick and whether following suit or discarding; the table below shows the usual application of the attitude signal and count signal.
| Following suit | Discarding | |
|---|---|---|
| Partner has led | attitude | attitude |
| Declarer has led | count | attitude |
Count signal is generally used only when following suit to declarer's lead. In the vast majority of cases the third-hand follow-suit signal is an attitude signal as shown above, but when the attitude signal does not apply, it's a count signal. Usually, it's relatively easy to recognize a signal correctly when the declarer leads – either a count signal when following suit, or an attitude signal when discarding, and when they do not apply, it's a suit-preference signal. When your partner leads, however, it's a lot more tricky.
In addition to these three type of signals, you can read lots of valuable information from the opening lead, like the strength, the length, and the key cards of the led suit.
When signaling standard attitude, a high card is encouraging and a low card is discouraging. Attitude is normally signaled when following suit to partner's led suit and when discarding on either partner's or declarer's led suit.
For example, if partner leads the Ace of spades, you might signal with the nine if you held the King (requesting partner to continue the suit), or with the three if you held nothing but small cards in spades (notifying partner that a switch to another suit is likely best).
Of course, you can only signal with the cards you hold. Signaling low is easy for you, but if your lowest card is the eight, partner might have difficulty "reading" it as low. When you are signaling high, play the highest card you can afford. Having easily-readable cards to signal with is part of the luck of the deal.
Suppose declarer is drawing trumps and you are out on the third round. Your discard should be an attitude signal for partner. If you play a high-spot diamond, for example, you ask partner to lead diamonds if she should gain the lead. Normally, you would have an honor or honors in diamonds in this case. If you play a low diamond, you ask partner to not lead diamonds if she should gain the lead. Partner will usually be able to figure out which of the other suits you do like (if any).
If declarer plays yet another round of trump, you may be able to play yet another diamond. This will make it unambiguous to partner whether you are encouraging diamonds (by playing high-low) or discouraging diamonds (by playing low-high).
With standard attitude signals you generally play the highest card you can afford for that purpose. Typically attitude signals are made when partner leads an honour (either on the opening lead or later) and requests a continuation. The usual reason for this is that you possess an honour equal to the honour played or promised by the lead. Against no trump contract (especially on the opening lead) partner will lead an honour from a solid or broken sequence, such as QJ10 or KQ10. With less solid holdings like QJxx(x) or KQxx(x) partner will lead his fourth best card. The reason to signal is, if partner leads from a broken sequence and there are small cards in dummy, partner may not know whether to continue the suit (should the trick hold or they gain the lead before you).
Example:
| 7 4 | ||
| K Q 10 6 2 | J 8 3 | |
| A 9 5 |
Partner leads the king against a notrump contract, with your J83 you would play the 8. So if partner has something like KQ1062 and declarer A95 they can continue the suit without giving up a trick if declarer lets it hold.
| 7 4 | ||
| K Q 10 6 2 | 9 8 3 | |
| A J 5 |
If you play the 3 partner may take this view of the suit, and may switch to another suit hoping to get you in to lead though declarer's probable jack. It is also possible that you have the singleton or doubleton 8, but in that case declarer would have 4 or 5 cards in the suit and the bidding may have revealed that. If declarer had bid the suit, your partner would also be less likely to lead from a broken honour sequence or maybe even lead the suit at all.
Note that some players agree to unblock their highest honour when a King is led against a notrump contract, and with no honuor to give a count signal.
The general principle is to NOT signal if doing so will help declarer more than the defenders.
Case 1: You judge that you hold virtually all of the defensive cards, that partner will very probably never gain the lead. Do not signal. Partner, on the other hand, knowing the situation, should consider signalling honestly.
Case 2: Signalling against a slam is very dangerous. Make declarer work as hard as possible.
A Smith Peter is a defensive signalling convention whereby a defender signals whether or not he likes his partners opening lead by playing either a high spot card (if he would like partner to continue to suit where possible) or a low spot card (if he would like partner to change to a different suit at the first opportunity) on the first declarer's first lead. This assumes that standard attitude signals are being played - a pair playing upside down attitude signals will often also play upside down Smith Peters whereby a high card discourages the suit of the opening lead and a low card encourages it.
The standard count signal is to play high-low with an even number of cards, and low-high with an odd number. Normally, you "give count" when following suit to declarer's led suits. This will help partner determine the distribution of the suit. See duck (bridge) for an example.
Count in the trump suit is normally inverted. Thus, high-low shows an odd number of trumps (probably three). Some partnerships (by advance agreement) signal this way only when they have a desire or ability to ruff something.
This signal is used infrequently. Oftentimes, it is no doubt that we have only choices of two suits play. When this is the case, we use a high card means lead the higher-ranking suit and a low card means lead the lower-ranking suit. There are four common cases:
Some partnerships agree in advance to play UDCA. With this agreement, the standard count and attitude signals are inverted: when signaling attitude, a low card is encouraging and a high card is discouraging; when signaling count high-low shows odd count, low-high shows even count.
Many experienced players believe UDCA is superior to standard signaling. Most importantly, it is often easier for partner to read your signals. Also, you do not have to "waste" high cards in suits you like.
Caution: UDCA, as the name states, applies to count and attitude signals only. Suit preference signals are played standard. Also, your leads (as opposed to signals) are unchanged—you still lead high from a doubleton, for example, barring another special agreement to the contrary.
As mentioned above, standard count in the trump suit is already "upside down". Experts recommend that trump signaling be the same in UDCA as standard trump signaling, that is, when playing UDCA, signal the same in all four suits.
Some partnerships agree in advance to assign special meaning to the first discard (failure to follow suit).
With this agreement, the first discard is suit preference. You do not like the led suit, of course, and you do not like the suit discarded. Your suit preference signal tells partner which of the two remaining suits you prefer. A high card for the higher ranking of the remaining suits and a low card for the lower ranking. This treatment is known as Lavinthal in the United States, or McKenney in the UK. The potential disadvantage of this method is that you always have to give preference for one suit or other, and you may not want any switch in particular. This can be overcome at times by signalling for an "impossible" switch, such as a suit in which dummy has a very strong holding e.g. AKQ.
There is another slightly different Lavinthal used by SAYC OKBridge Style Simplified: discard of a low card of either remaining suit (i.e., excluding trumps and the suit you are out of), asks for the lower suit. For example, if hearts are trumps and you are discarding on clubs, then a low spade or diamond asks for a diamond. Discard of a high card of either remaining suit, asks for the higher suit.
As with Lavinthal, you have the possibility to request suit preference in two ways. A low discard indicates interest in the suit directly below (a low club signaling spades); a high discard signals preference for the suit directly above (a high spade signaling clubs). In a suit contract, the trump suit is skipped in reading the signal. This is felt by many to be easier to remember than Lavinthal.
With this agreement, the first discard shows the following: if it is an odd spot card (three, five, seven or nine) it is encouraging in that suit; if it is a low even spot card (deuce or four), it is suit preference for the lower ranking suit of the other two suits; if it is a high even spot card (six or eight), it shows preference for the higher ranking suit. The even card often has a dual function, in that, it not only indicates suit preference but it is also a negative indication for the suit being used for the even card.
A surrogate suit[1] is one played by declarer in which a defender has neither need to signal his attitude or count nor use to give a preference signal; usually the trump suit is a good surrogate suit if a trump echo is not needed. The suit in which the count will be given is called the target suit.
Declarer is entitled to know what signaling agreements you have with your partner, and you must disclose them if asked. However, you do not have to interpret any particular play. For example, if partner plays the six of clubs and you are asked what it means, you should simply say "a high club encourages clubs, a low club discourages clubs" (assuming that is your agreement). You do not have to say whether on this deal the six is encouraging or not.
Most regulating bodies in bridge also prohibit the use of encrypted signals. These signals convey a message that can only be interpreted knowing some specifics of the hands of the defenders.
In general, the partner will gain more from a player's signals than declarer, so it is worthwhile to signal honestly most of the time. However, since declarer can see your signals as well, a player who gains a reputation for always giving accurate count, for example, may find information given away by their signals used to their disadvantage. So it is common practice to throw in a misleading signal now and then, hopefully when it won't matter to partner.