Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Hand Evaluation – Signals ( odd-even discards )

PITBULLS:

          Defense in the game of Bridge is a true partnership skill . One aspect of  defense is signaling by a discard. The Italians ( Blue team ) designed a scheme of discards that complement your normal discarding scheme whether it be standard or upside down . What do I mean by complement ? Their scheme is designed for the 1st discard only . All other discards later in the hand follow your default understanding. The Blue Team invented an odd even discard treatment. An odd card as a first discard is almost a command to switch to that suit. An even discard says I do not like that suit but it has suit preference built in which is very handy. Using this scheme , it is best to use the negative even discard as you do not give a trick away in your "good suit " .

Ilya Kuzkin came up with a good use of the even negative discard in defending a vul 1♠ partial . Ilya got off to the best opening lead of a trump and the board hit with ♠Kxx ♥Qxx ♦x ♣J109xxx . I held ♠QJ109 ♥AJx ♦J9xxx ♣Q , the declarer won the spade king & led a diamond to his Ace with Ilya playing the ♦Q . He ruffed a diamond with Ilya playing the ♦K . He now lead  a club & I played the stiff Q , declarer the ♣K and Ilya the ♣A. Ilya returned a trump to declarers Ace. Declarer lead a spade & Ilya discarded the ♣8 his first chance to make a discard ! . This is a trigger for odd/even discards. Obviously he does not like clubs but he is telling me he has an honour in hearts  ( higher ranking ) without "yelling" as an odd heart discard would do.   Declarer has shown up with 11 HCP's so with Ilya's signal , declarer cannot hold the ♥K . My defense is now simple as I change the contract to 1NT by drawing his trump. I lead a small heart to Ilya's known king & he returns a heart. We cash 3 hearts and declarer follows to all of them. I lead a small diamond to end play declarer in diamonds so we take two more diamonds for +200. The opponents were in a ridiculous 3NT our way which goes down at least two for a +400 swing our way.

        In general with any discard signaling scheme , it is best to tell partner what you do not like ( negative ) with your first discard . Throwing away tricks by signaling in your "good suit" is not a good idea. The odd/even discarding scheme is built for negative discards as they are suit preference signals !!! This is like cheating !!. Every expert partnership should play odd/even discards as they are very powerful. Playing this scheme , an odd discard is a "wake up" signal saying I really have this suit or please switch to this suit so we can beat the contract. Otherwise , tell partner you like the suit more subtly with a HI or LO even discard in another suit.

        Declarer can false card with other signaling schemes . It will be difficult to tell if partners discard was low or high. It is impossible for declarer to false card you with an odd / even scheme. A discard is simply odd or even despite declarers' efforts to practice deception.