[sj0097]

i am a begginner and just dont know how to use signal
i cannot understand the things that the booklet said
anyone can explain it to me?
thank you very much

[Stephen Tu]

Go to https://web.acbl.org...ridge/index.jsp and request free download link for "learn to play bridge" software, one and two, if you haven't already. There is some introductory defensive material in part two. When you are done with these, then go to a bookstore or library, and get Bill Root's "How to Defend a Bridge Hand". Root's "How to Play a Bridge Hand" is also excellent for beginners.

Also, try to post in the novice/beginner forum instead of the general forum.

[Zelandakh]

Welcome to the forums. Carding and signalling is one of the more difficult areas for someone just starting out in bridge. However it is well worth getting the conventions worked out and practising this hard as it will help enormously later on. The first rule of signalling is that to do so you only play a card that you do not need for taking tricks. The signalling conventions apply to cards where you have a free choice. Let us start with leading.

One of the very best leads in bridge is from a sequence of honours. When you lead from such a sequence you always play the HIGHEST. Against a suit contract a sequence of 2 cards is enough but against a NT contract you should usually have a 3rd card "in the area" before leading the honour. As an example, if you chose to lead from a suit with QJ543 you would normally lead the Q against a suit contract but the 4 (4th highest) against NT; but with QJ943 it is normal to lead the Q against either.

One of the things you might have noticed in the last paragraph is that I mentioned leading the 4th highest card. This is the default card to lead in a long suit headed by an honour when you cannot lead from a sequence. There are some historical reasons for this but the idea is that this card is low enough to be read by partner but not so high as to be giving up a useful card for little gain. There is also a nice little trick that your partner can use - subtract the size of the spot from 11 to work out how many cards higher than partner's card are left. By looking at your own hand and the dummy you can work out how many cards declarer has higher than this card.

Finally, you sometimes need to lead from a suit without an honour. Against a NT contract you usually want to warn your partner that you do not have any strength in the suit and lead a high card, either the highest or second highest. Against a suit contract there is an added complication in that we will often lead a singleton or doubleton in the hope of receiving a ruff. Therefore you lead the highest from two cards but the lowest from three. With 4 or more you expect partner to be able to read that the lead is not short and can lead a high card in the same way as against NT.

Next come general signals. The rule for signalling is that you give them in the order attitude -> count -> suit preference. Attitude means whether you like a suit or not, a high card means "like" and a low card means "dislike". Count tells partner whether you have an even or an odd number of cards in the suit, a high card for even or a low card for odd. Suit prefetrence tells partner which of the other suits you like. Usually there are only 2 suits to choose from by the time you make such a signal (you disregard trumps or declarer's long suit in NT) so a high card indicates a preference for the higher ranked suit and a low card a preference for the lower ranked.

You skip a signal if it is clear that partner will not be interested in it. For example, if partner leads the king (showing the queen) and AJT9 are in dummy then it is clear that we cannot have a liking for the suit so we should instead give a count signal. Similarly, when declarer leads a suit then showing atttitude will simply help them place the missing honours in the suit so it is better to skip attitude and give count.

The last topic is discards. These actually work in exactly the same way as other signals as above. For the first discard in a suit you play a high card if you like the suit or a low card if you do not like it. Discarding further cards in the suit show count, then suit preference (if enough cards are held). Many pairs choose to skip the count signal here, some even skip the attitude signal as well. I recommend just sticking with the basic attitude/count/suit preference method to begin with though.

And that covers most of the basics. The rest is about practise and, if you have a regular partner, discussing after hands where you misunderstood a signal or where you were not sure what to signal, and perhaps even hands where you needed a signal but the methods did not provide one. The latter will move you onto intermediate level as you start to see where this signalling method can be improved and add exceptions.

[Quantumcat]

Short answer - discuss with partner. Most common amongst beginners (I've found) is low encourage on partner's lead, reverse count on declarer's lead, and low encourage on first discard.

For a complete beginner, skip the count cards, just play your lowest when declarer plays a suit and you can't beat their card.

When partner leads a suit, and you can't win and don't have to play third-hand-high, you play your lowest if you are happy for partner to continue playing this suit when he gets on lead (e.g. you have an honour and dummy won the ace. Or you don't have an honour, but don't like any other suit). Conversely, if you have a much better suit you'd rather partner played, you play your highest.

When you make your first discard, play your lowest from a suit you want partner to play if he gets on lead, or your highest from a suit you really don't want him to play. If you don't have any preference at all, you can play low from a suit that partner is void in, or from a suit you know that partner knows is a bad idea to play, or high in a suit you think partner is likely to switch to (e.g. there's a king in dummy).

This is the basics of signalling.

[Vampyr]

Quantumcat, on 2012-May-22, 23:30, said:

Short answer - discuss with partner. Most common amongst beginners (I've found) is low encourage on partner's lead, reverse count on declarer's lead, and low encourage on first discard.

I have never seen beginners play, or teachers teach beginners to play, reverse signals.

[Quantumcat]

Vampyr, on 2012-May-23, 11:49, said:

I have never seen beginners play, or teachers teach beginners to play, reverse signals.

Here in Australia, it is the norm. Only people that play Acol (New Zealanders, some elderly South Australians) play high-encourage. High-encourage is seen as "old", much the same as take-out bids over 1NT instead of transfers.

[Vampyr]

I don't think the OP is planning to play in Australia, although I might be wrong.

In any case, when posting advice to beginners it is very helpful to mention the geographical region to which it applies.

[perko90]

Quantumcat, on 2012-June-01, 21:40, said:

Here in Australia, it is the norm. Only people that play Acol (New Zealanders, some elderly South Australians) play high-encourage. High-encourage is seen as "old", much the same as take-out bids over 1NT instead of transfers.

That's cool! At least some people are starting to teach up-side-down attitude (UDA) to beginners. UDA is a card saver. Don't have to do any mental calculations of "can I afford to pitch the 9 to show I like it"? Lowest is lowest - no extra thinking required. And, I always thought it was more consistent with the rest of what we teach beginners: lead top of nothing (when you don't like the suit) and low (or 4th best) from an honor to show you like it.

[billw55]

Quote

Here in Australia, it is the norm. Only people that play Acol (New Zealanders, some elderly South Australians) play high-encourage. High-encourage is seen as "old", much the same as take-out bids over 1NT instead of transfers.

Agree strongly.

There are only two reasons I can think of that encouraging with a high card was ever used:

1. to beginners, playing a low card when not winning a trick seems most natural. Therefore, playing a high card is perceived as unnatural, and therefore attention-getting, by another beginner.
2. this is the first thing they came up with back in the 1930s when the game was young.

Quote

That's cool! At least some people are starting to teach up-side-down attitude (UDA) to beginners. UDA is a card saver. Don't have to do any mental calculations of "can I afford to pitch the 9 to show I like it"? Lowest is lowest - no extra thinking required. And, I always thought it was more consistent with the rest of what we teach beginners: lead top of nothing (when you don't like the suit) and low (or 4th best) from an honor to show you like it.

Agree again, encouraging with low cards when leading but high cards when discarding or following suit to partner's lead, is just contradictory and confusing to a beginner or novice.

Encouraging with high cards is just an inferior and vastly outdated method that ought to have been weeded out ages ago along with all the dusty old bidding methods that failed to stand the test of time. We teach beginners Stayman and transfers, we teach them takeout and negative doubles, we teach them weak twos. It's high time we started teaching them to encourage with low cards too.

/rant

For the OP: all that said, the one thing that is truly most important is that you and your partner agree on what method you are using. You may indeed find that most other beginners are learning to encourage with high cards, and therefore you may have to use that method for a while at least.

[ArtK78]

Many years ago in The Bridge World there was an article in which the author runs into a UFO containing 3 Martians. Naturally, they sit down for a game of bridge. The human and his Martian partner have a disaster on defense as the Martian assumed that they were using upside down signals, as it is only logical to use upside down signals. If I remember correctly, the Martians did not refer to them as upside down signals, as they considered standard signals to be backwards.