Defensive Carding
McKenzie Myers							McKenzie@doublesqueeze.com

Signaling: What Does Partner’s Card Mean?

When partner leads a suit and his card is holding the trick, your signal shows Attitude.
When the opponents lead a suit (and you are not involved in winning the trick), your sign shows Count.
When partner leads a suit and second hand takes the trick with the Ace/King, your signal shows Attitude (unless obvious) otherwise signal Count.
In a suit contract, your signal shows Suit Preference when partner leads dummy’s singleton.
There are many other Suit Preference situations for advanced partnerships.

Discards

Purpose of Discards
We discard in order to help partner – while trying not to help declarer too much
Tell your partner where your values are by encouraging in suits you have something in and discouraging in suits where you have nothing
Primary Cards
When you encourage with your first discard, you show a primary card (Ace of King)
When you discourage with your first discard and then encourage later you show a secondary card – usually a Queen.
Truth?
Balance  between telling partner something that they need to know and giving the declarer information
When you have all the points for your side – then you can lie because your partner has nothing to do with the defense

Standard or Upside-Down?

I strongly advocate upside-down carding for those who are able to make the switch. With Standard carding, you’re often faced with the tough decision whether to mislead your partner or pitch the setting trick!

Defensive Musts

The most important part of defense is not leading or signaling or any other agreement. The important part of any defense is to think. There is nothing you can do and no special agreement that you can have that replaces this most important part of the game! What do we think about?
HCP
Distribution
Where are declarer’s tricks coming from?
What is the declarer trying to accomplish? (And what are we trying to do?
)