Signaling Partner

Playing in the last round of a club Swiss, where your team has a chance to win the event and is, in fact, playing the leaders, you are faced with a defensive signaling issue  … one that is influenced not only by partnership agreements, but, more importantly, by the attribute of your putting yourself into the shoes of your partner:

(Please disregard the “N” and “W”; the designations “East” and South” are correct.)

 

Partner leads the ♦A and declarer calls for a small card from dummy.  What is your defensive plan?  How does that plan affect your Trick 1 signal?

Dummy seems to have overbid his hand by treating it as a limit raise.  And, worse, seems to have recognized that by making an undisciplined bid of 5♠ over your partner’s raise to game.  If you can set 5♠, your chances of winning the event are surely enhanced.

You hope that partner has raised with only four diamonds so that his ♦A survives Trick 1.  Where are your other two tricks coming from?  You can begin with an assumption that declarer has no spade losers.

Are there quick losers in dummy that can be pitched on a second suit of declarer?  Since you own the ♥A, you can tell that declarer will not be able to immediately pitch clubs on hearts.  Can he pitch three hearts on clubs?  If declarer has AKQxx, he will be able, if allowed, to draw trumps and then pitch three hearts on the clubs, to win 12 tricks – this is giving declarer a hand such as AKxxx, xx, x, AKQxx, certainly a possibility.  You can hold declarer to eleven tricks if partner can be induced to lead a heart at Trick 2.  That seems to be the best you can do on this hand.  How can you induce partner to lead a heart?

Well, if partner knows that another diamond is not cashing, then perhaps your Trick 1 signal should be a suit preference signal.  Will a highish diamond get partner to lead a heart?

Perhaps.  But only if partner and you are on the same wavelength.  And why should partner be expecting suit preference to be the signal of choice?  From the perspective of your partner, you have not promised five diamonds.  The double of an artificial call of 2♦, when the vul opponents have a 9+ card fit in spades, is unlikely to be punished and you might well have taken advantage of that knowledge to have doubled on a four card suit.  No, to my way of thinking, you cannot make a suit preference signal at Trick 1 – at least in this situation – when your normal signals when partner leads are attitude.

OK.  So if your Trick 1 signal is attitude and not suit preference, should you encourage or discourage?  Well, if you encourage, you are likely to get a diamond return.  You know that that is not constructive to the defense because, assuming declarer does not ruff Trick 1, he will surely ruff Trick 2.  Your heart winner might go away, giving declarer an overtrick.  So, let’s try the effect of discouraging on the diamond lead.  That might get partner to switch suits.  But will he switch to hearts?

From partner’s perspective, he might be fearing that clubs will be pitched on hearts and not vice-versa.  The declarer hand that partner might fear is something like AKxxx, AJxxx, x, xx.  If that is the case then partner (who, in this construction, owns one of the top two club winners), will lead a club, so that your side can cash the first three tricks.  From partner’s perspective, if he does not lead a club, declarer will draw trumps, run hearts to pitch dummy’s two club losers and win twelve tricks in the form of five spades, five hearts, and two club ruffs.  Remember, partner does not know that you own the ♥A.

So … what should you do?

I think you should encourage a continuation of diamonds.  That’s because the one thing that an encouragement of diamonds should accomplish is discouraging partner from leading clubs.  And the lead of a club can be giving away the contract should declarer own AKxxx, xx, x, AQxxx.

Interestingly, at least to me as one who is a big fan of Granovetters’ Switch in Time, a defensive signaling system built on Obvious Shift principles will work great on this hand.  First, that is because the Granovetters teach that no signal at Trick 1 is a suit preference signal – that eliminates a concept that can cause partnerships to suffer misunderstandings.  Second, that is because clubs is defined as the Obvious Shift suit (if the hearts were headed by only one honor [in which case, up to three heart tricks might be available if the layout were different], hearts would be defined as the Obvious Shift suit).  Therefore, the Trick 1 attitude signal would revolve not around diamonds, the suit led, but around clubs, the suit of the Obvious Shift.  If you own either the ♣A or the ♣K, you would discourage on the diamond lead, in order to encourage a shift to the Obvious Shift suit of clubs.  And if you own neither the ♣A nor the ♣K, you would encourage on the diamond lead.  Yes, encouragement is likely to get you a diamond continuation rather than a heart switch.  At matchpoints, perhaps that is a problem since the ♥A might go away if declarer can pitch dummy’s three hearts on his projected AKQxx of clubs and you will find that you are saddled with -680 instead of -650.  But at IMPs, I would contend that your signaling should revolve around getting partner to avoid switching to a club.

So … what happened at the table?  Well, South discouraged.  North, who owned the ♣K, switched to a club.  Declarer did, in fact, own a 5=2=1=5 hand with solid spades and AQ-fifth of clubs and brought home a contract that has three tricks “off the top”.  Alas, while South’s defensive signal was not well-considered, North must share the blame.  North’s held J98x of hearts and should have been able to figure out that there was, in spite of South’s signal of discouragement, no compelling reason to switch to clubs.  A diamond continuation would have set the contract.  And, yes, probably have won the event.  Sigh!