[blackshoe]

The law book gives me sufficient justification, I think.

[helene_t]

Playing kitchen bridge as a child, I would play all the winners at the same time. This served a didactic purpose because we were in the process of learning count signals. Obv this only makes sense if the defender as well as declarer could follow suit throughout. So you probably have the agreement that if declarer says "run the diamonds" and you have fewer diamonds than dummy, you give some other signal? Or just give count because partner's discards may depend on your count?

Back to the topic. I think the practice is very bad. When declarer starts running a long suit I sometimes give a clear sp signal by discarding an honour which I will have to discard later anyway. I don't want that decision, nor partners interpretation of my signal, to depend on declarers musings. And then there's the issue when I follow suit to a trick in the same instant as declarer cancels the instruction and we are not sure if I played out of turn. This actually sometimes happens when we are in a rush.

[barmar]

helene_t, on 2015-February-25, 02:03, said:

Back to the topic. I think the practice is very bad. When declarer starts running a long suit I sometimes give a clear sp signal by discarding an honour which I will have to discard later anyway. I don't want that decision, nor partners interpretation of my signal, to depend on declarers musings. And then there's the issue when I follow suit to a trick in the same instant as declarer cancels the instruction and we are not sure if I played out of turn. This actually sometimes happens when we are in a rush.

Hopefully if there's a tie like this, the TD will adjudicate in favor of the defender. While we may grudgingly allow this practice even though it's technically a law violation, declarer should rarely be able to win disputes that arise from it.

Are people suggesting that saying "Run the suit" could be a violation of 73D2, as it may mislead a defender into thinking that the suit is all good? But I guess the WBFLC minute, which implies that it's just a provisional instruction, means that we shouldn't make this inference.

[Zelandakh]

After such a designation, what happens if a defender plays a card to a trick after declarer has told dummy to change the played card but before dummy has removed it from the played position? They get to change their play without penalty and declarer has UI, right? So if declarer does do this, just discard that 2-way finesse honour from your hand without noticing the change in designation and you are covered - easy game!

[BudH]

Zelandakh, on 2015-March-26, 08:29, said:

After such a designation, what happens if a defender plays a card to a trick after declarer has told dummy to change the played card but before dummy has removed it from the played position? They get to change their play without penalty and declarer has UI, right? So if declarer does do this, just discard that 2-way finesse honour from your hand without noticing the change in designation and you are covered - easy game!

Yet another situation dependent on when dummy's card verbally called by declarer is deemed played....

[Vampyr]

helene_t, on 2015-February-25, 02:03, said:

When declarer starts running a long suit I sometimes give a clear sp signal by discarding an honour which I will have to discard later anyway.

Yes, and as mycroft above, you might want to make the discards in a particular order, eg bare an honour early, if you would be squeezed if all of the cards in the suit are played. I guess you just have to pretend they are just being played one by one.

[Vampyr]

BudH, on 2015-March-30, 14:29, said:

Yet another situation dependent on when dummy's card verbally called by declarer is deemed played....

Not "another" and anyway this is a very irregular procedure and really should be abolished.