From: jschuler@dcs.simpact.com
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge
Subject: Re: Is standard carding obsolete?
Date: 29 Sep 92 17:02:58 PDT
Organization: Simpact Associates, San Diego CA

In article <1992Sep24.200720.11561@leland.Stanford.EDU>, daveshao@leland.stanford.edu (David Shao) writes:
>>From: mss@netcom.com (Mark Singer)
>>Subject:  Novato Individual  (long)
> 
> Mark Singer writes in his commentary about the Novato Individual
> 
>>DEFENSIVE PLAY
> 
>>Carding was standard, with attitude being the primary signal.
>>By and large, this presented few problems to these skillful
>>defenders.  The limitations did force many players to work
>>hard on defense, but they frequently went right without help
>>from partner that might have been there with more sophisticated
>>methods.
> 
> In the 1991 World Championship Book I read the description of the
> defensive carding conventions used by the semifinalists.  It seemed
> that none of the teams used standard American carding.  Intrigued,
> I made it a point to see if I could find hands from the matches
> where a sparkling defensive play was made only because of the use
> of non-standard carding.  To my surprise, I found that swings
> resulting from defensive card play looked more like this:
> 
> Board 98 of the final between Iceland and Poland in the Bermuda Bowl
> 
> Dlr:E    J872                 Closed Room:
> Vul:NS   7                    West      North      East       South
>          AQ                   Lasocki   Jonsson    Gawrys     Arnarson
>          AKJ984               -         -          P          P
> AKT4                96        1H        2C         3H*        P 
> AJT63               KQ8       P         x          P          4C
> 32                  J8654     All Pass
> Q3                  T72
>          Q53                 
>          9542                
>          KT97                
>          65                  
>                              
> The defense began with two rounds of hearts, declarer ruffing the second
> round and playing three rounds of trumps felling the queen.  West
> discarded a spade on the third round of trumps.  Declarer then led a
> spade to dummy's queen taken by West.  Later declarer overtook the DQ
> with dummy's DK to lead a spade toward his jack making 4C.
> 
> It seems to me that if EW had used standard attitude signals they defeat
> the contract immediately.  East leads HK and West discourages with the H3.
> The only suit that it makes sense to shift to is spades, so East leads
> the S9 with confidence and gets his spade ruff.  
> 
> The more I read about results in actual play the more it seems to me
> that bad results are not happening because of defective signalling
> agreements--they happen because players have lapses during long
> matches.  
> 

There is insufficient information given about this hand to determine
what went wrong. ASSUMING that Est held the lead after starting
with a heart honor, the following seems clear as a matter of 
bridge LOGIC rather than METHOD:

1. BOTH East and West KNEW after seeing dummy that at most 1 heart
trick was cashing.

2. West could have OVERTAKEN if a heart continuation was planned.
However, it does not seem likely that West was interested in a 
passive defense.

3. West probably played the 6 or 3 (depending on method) 
as SUIT PREFERENCE and East was too tired to work it out.

John Schuler
Newsgroups: rec.games.bridge