[CSGibson]

I was wondering: Is it a legal agreement that in the case of a hold-up play where one person has the ace, that the person who has the ace will automatically give wrong count, whereas the person without the ace will automatically give correct systemic count? I'm thinking of a choice of play situation where declarer might be forced to choose between playing for a suit to be 3-3 (having not taken an ace the first two rounds), or alternative lines of play.

[trevahound]

I would think if you had that agreement you'd have to disclose it if asked about your carding (any ask is the trigger, they don't have to do a root canal). Thus, seems counterproductive, vs the default which is not based upon agreement but rather general bridge knowledge (maybe an implied agreement) that the one without the A always gives honest count, and the one with the A plays either closest to his thumb, or in any other way that amuses him.

[aguahombre]

Can the opponents also ask who has the Ace?

It doesn't seem as if Trev's randomizing will work in this situation. If they both end up showing odd (or even), that is the distribution because one of them is giving the right count on purpose.

[Cascade]

Effectively you are signaling how many small cards you have. That is a known signaling method and I can't think of any reason why it would be illegal.

[CSGibson]

I was thinking that this agreement made sense, but might be construed as a coded signal, since you are in effect playing standard or upside-down dependent on posession of a card in a defender's hand.

[GreenMan]

I believe you are describing an encrypted signal: The meaning of your signal depends on information about your hand that you and your partner have but declarer does not. Most SOs including the ACBL do not allow them.

[aguahombre]

GreenMan, on 2013-January-30, 20:19, said:

I believe you are describing an encrypted signal: The meaning of your signal depends on information about your hand that you and your partner have but declarer does not. Most SOs including the ACBL do not allow them.

Don't even suggest in humor that an agreement requiring the person without the Ace to give true count is illegal and an agreement that the person with the Ace can do whatever he wants (partner doesn't need the count) is illegal encryption.

[Cascade]

Not to mention it is not true encryption as on some layouts declarer can hide the ace.

[GreenMan]

aguahombre, on 2013-January-30, 22:49, said:

Don't even suggest in humor that an agreement requiring the person without the Ace to give true count is illegal and an agreement that the person with the Ace can do whatever he wants (partner doesn't need the count) is illegal encryption.

You must have wandered in from some other thread.

[Mbodell]

Isn't this fairly standard? In many situations the person with a key honor should lie and the person without the honor should tell the truth and then the declarer is stuck. Works for when defense has 5 cards including the Q too.

[paulg]

Cascade, on 2013-January-30, 17:48, said:

Effectively you are signaling how many small cards you have. That is a known signaling method and I can't think of any reason why it would be illegal.

Slawinski devotes quite a lot of time to this signalling method (which he calls a 'mixed signal') in Systems in Defence. He maintained that it was more useful than a count signal in normal play (and didn't even mention this specific situation).

Mbodell, on 2013-January-31, 02:01, said:

Isn't this fairly standard? In many situations the person with a key honor should lie and the person without the honor should tell the truth and then the declarer is stuck. Works for when defense has 5 cards including the Q too.

I doubt it is standard for BBF players let alone the average player. As Cascade points out it is easy to see that it should be a legal agreement but disclosure is important - unfortunately the ACBL system card makes this agreement easy to hide.

[barmar]

Most books on defense recommend that if one defender has almost all of the defensive strength, the weak one should generally give true count, but the strong one doesn't have to bother. The weak one is never going to get in, so he doesn't need to know partner's shape -- his main contribution to the defense is helping partner determine declarer's shape.

I classify both the situation in the OP and this as one player "telling partner what he needs to know" and the other "don't signal unnecessarily, since it just helps declarer". These are both just general bridge principles.

[Zelandakh]

Surely it is GBK that you should consider giving a false signal any time that you know for sure that partner does not need to know, especially where the information might be useful to declarer. Do defenders always mention the possibility of falsecarding whenever an opponent asks about their carding methods? I know I do not, and I would expect to make the (false) signal suggested in this thread just about every time. If the situation in the suit is obvious to both defenders then some thought should perhaps also be given to suit preference or even surrogate count signals.

[paulg]

Zelandakh, on 2013-January-31, 04:48, said:

Surely it is GBK that you should consider giving a false signal any time that you know for sure that partner does not need to know, especially where the information might be useful to declarer.

I believe it is too. However an agreement that you give false count when you do not hold an honour and true count when you do is not GBK - it is an agreement to accurately show the number of small cards that you hold.

[barmar]

So agreeing to do the normal, logical thing makes it a "special partnership understanding" that needs to be disclosed?

[mycroft]

In many cases, yes.

Choosing to do the normal, logical thing is one thing, bridge players including your partner can work it out; agreeing to do the same thing is an agreement.

Failing to state that you have *agreed to show standard count with the A* (playing upside-down "normally), as opposed to choosing to falsecard, is an undisclosed agreement. [Edit to add: basically, if partner plays you to hold the wrong number of cards not because he can count it out, but because you have signalled "correctly", then if declarer can't work out that "the one that lied has the A" because that's "normal, logical", it's both an SPU and not GBK.]

Failing to push on this leads to "we signal rarely, but when we do, we tell partner what he needs to know." And I have seen that, and it is absolutely normal and logical (taken to extremes), and is also prima facie not full disclosure, even to opponents of said disclosure player's level.

Yes, it's stupid. So's the regulation stating the one can't have agreements after opponents' infractions, or that one can't have an agreement to open 1NT with a singleton. So, don't talk about it, and don't pay attention to it, and hope "implied SPU" doesn't come up, can't be proven, or won't get pushed.

[Cascade]

barmar, on 2013-January-31, 09:56, said:

So agreeing to do the normal, logical thing makes it a "special partnership understanding" that needs to be disclosed?

Absolutely. That is what full disclosure means. Somethings only in response to a question.

[aguahombre]

If we employ "need to know" signalling (we do), this whole thread is moot. The person with the Ace needs to know; the person without the Ace doesn't need to know. We don't have an obligation to tell Declarer which one of us has the Ace; If he knows by the auction who has it, splendid; if he doesn't, splendid for us.

Our disclosure, if asked, would be just exactly that: if we believe partner needs to know something, we signal according to agreement; if we don't, we don't.

[barmar]

BTW, I'm about halfway through "Bridge at the Enigma Club", which is all about encrypted bidding and signalling systems.

[CSGibson]

Regarding Dave's points (signaling what we need to know):

When signaling, I keep in mind who my audience is. If I want to impart information to partner, I signal honestly. If I think it is more important to give disinformation to declarer, I lie. My holdings in a suit and knowledge of the auction as a whole frequently contribute to that decision.


I was recently playing in a sectional game against a Grand Life Master, who held J98 in a side suit, which I had to guess for the remainder of the tricks (Dummy had 6 to the KT). He, playing standard signals, gave the 9 on the first round of the suit (I led A from hand) as his partner's Q fell, giving me a nudge toward's playing his partner for QJ tight, and I thought that was a great subtle falsecard (though it did not ultimately pay off for him, as I gave him the compliment of finessing after a lot of thought). In that case, he was signalling for my benefit, not for his partner's benefit.