[awm]

For a long time I've believed that standard vs. upside down carding is basically symmetric (i.e. if there's a position where it helps to play standard carding, there's an equivalent position with different spots etc. where you'd rather play upside-down). But this looks like a real advantage for standard carding!

Partner leads ace from ace-king against a suit contract. I've got three small in the suit, but I really want him to play his other high honor.

Playing standard carding, I can choose the middle card. Partner will think I am encouraging and cash the other honor. Now I follow with the highest card. Partner will know that I did not have doubleton, and in many cases can determine my exact spot holding and what I've done.

The basic ploy here is to "encourage" and then cancel the message. In UDCA, you can "discourage" by playing the middle spot and then cancel the message by playing higher the next time -- except that after you "discourage" partner will probably not continue (and if he does, he probably thinks declarer concealed the small spot, a belief which you will only confirm by playing higher the next time).

This is in addition to the problem of JTx when partner leads ace and dummy has three small (playing jack/ten may cost a trick, but playing low looks encouraging in UDCA).

[Stephen Tu]

Doesn't this just depend on how high your middle card is? With 982 you can encourage with 8 then cancel playing std. But if you were dealt 932 won't upside down work better, 3 looks kind of encouraging then the 2 cancels? Seems a bit random how readable that middle card will be.

I do think Scanian signals (situational std/UD) are best in theory but only ever had one partner willing to play it. And the gains are pretty rare, the layouts where it matters don't come up with much frequency. I do think in general it's better to play std on the AKx lead due to the JTx issue, if you want to make it easy and only play one exception.

[awm]

The point here isn’t “sometimes partner can’t read my card” though. Assume partner can always read my card. It’s better to be able to signal encouragement and then cancel ... rather than discourage and then cancel. Because if I discourage, partner won’t continue, and I won’t get to cancel.

[Stephen Tu]

I don't really buy your argument. You are saying that with std, middle is encouraging because it's not the lowest and partner has x-ray vision to know that the 3 from 932 is encouraging. So therefore you are encouraging then cancelling. But I could just as easily claim that with upside down, middle is encouraging because it's not the highest, partner has x-ray vision and knows you have a higher spot.

[MrAce]

Most people that I know, whether they play udca or std, do not play encourage/discourage signals UNLESS A- dummy has exactly 3 cards in this suit B- It is 5 or higher level contract.
And at 5 or higher level contracts, just because pd started with an honor card, particularly Ace, does not mean he has the K .

[Dinarius]

I play Ace for attitude, King for count. So, I expect the lead of the King in your example. My little one, from three, then let’s partner to decide what to do. (They may, of course, have led from AK or KQ or AKQ)

D.

[steve2005]

awm, on 2018-April-08, 01:30, said:

Playing standard carding, I can choose the middle card. Partner will think I am encouraging and cash the other honor. Now I follow with the highest card. Partner will know that I did not have doubleton, and in many cases can determine my exact spot holding and what I've done.

You can have a meaning for a middle card playing upside down. So this is not an advantage of standard carding.

As people have pointed out a middle card is often difficult to read, this is true for both methods depending on holding.

[Vampyr]

steve2005, on 2018-April-08, 08:18, said:

You can have a meaning for a middle card playing upside down. So this is not an advantage of standard carding.

As people have pointed out a middle card is often difficult to read, this is true for both methods depending on holding.

I think that the OP’s point is that after playing a middle card, it is often clear that a lower card is also held. Yes, declarer may choose to conceal a low spot-card, but this can be assumed to usually not be the case.

[nullve]

Stephen Tu, on 2018-April-08, 01:53, said:

Doesn't this just depend on how high your middle card is? With 982 you can encourage with 8 then cancel playing std. But if you were dealt 932 won't upside down work better, 3 looks kind of encouraging then the 2 cancels? Seems a bit random how readable that middle card will be.

One difference between the 8 and 3 is that the 8 can sometimes be either the lowest from three cards (e.g. T98) or the highest (e.g. from 872). The 3 is therefore generally more readable as a low card than the 8 as a high card. So one could use the order in which the 3 and 2 are played from x32 (but maybe not the 9 and 8 from 98x) to send a secondary signal, as in the OP.

Maybe I've completely misunderstood Adam's point, but it seems that if partner leads the A in a suit in which I have x32, and we play UDCA, then I can "encourage" with the 3 (which can't be the highest from xxx) and play the 2 next, sending a different (secondary) signal than if I encourage 2 first and then play the 3 (or the x). So, does this restore the symmetry between standard carding and UDCA?

[foobar]

FWIW, Meckwell play standard carding at T1 if the lead is from AK (and UDCA otherwise), so perhaps they were trying to solve a similar problem as well?

[kuhchung]

I'm pretty sure Meckwell just plays it for technical reasons, not "wanting to signal and then cancel a signal"

Classic example is that partner has JTx, or even JT9x, and you simply cannot afford a high a spot or you lose the finesse against declarer's Q