[Knurdler]

My partner and I are struggling to come up with a concise summary of how to apply attitude signals against a trump contract.
We have agreed High = Encourage, Low = Discourage.

We do not need or want a comprehensive system.
We can change to UCDA later and add lead K for count after we are comfortable with the basics.

This as far as we have got:
1. If partner leads an honour, assume they have the next lower honour. With a touching lower or any higher honour: encourage
eg A led. Assume partner has AK. Encourage with Qxx. Discourage without Q
2. If partner leads an honour and you have a doubleton and want to ruff: encourage. Eg A led. Encourage with xx.
3. If partner leads low, suggesting an honour, you try to win the trick. If If dummy holds the trick with J or lower: give “Count”
4. If partner leads low and dummy holds the trick with A, K or Q and you have a lower honour: encourage???
5. If partner leads an honour & dummy has the next lower touching honour: give “Count”. Eg A led. Dummy has Qxx.

Points 1,2, 3 and 5 I have sourced from the internet.
Point 4 is my own extension of point 3.

Questions:
1. Anything major we should delete or add?
2. What is the answer to point 4?

Tks

[P_Marlowe]

In general you should encourage, if you dont want a switch.

[Stephen Tu]

Knurdler, on 2026-March-03, 11:57, said:

This as far as we have got:
1. If partner leads an honour, assume they have the next lower honour. With a touching lower or any higher honour: encourage
eg A led. Assume partner has AK. Encourage with Qxx. Discourage without Q
2. If partner leads an honour and you have a doubleton and want to ruff: encourage. Eg A led. Encourage with xx.

You encourage if you want partner to continue 3 rds of the suit if they lead your card implying AK(x+). Sometimes you might discourage despite holding the Q (dummy has Jxxx and your Q would get ruffed and set up a winner for declarer), and sometimes you'd discourage despite holding doubleton for various reasons (want shift instead, can't over-ruff dummy on 3rd round, etc.). Similarly you might encourage despite holding say xxx if you really want the second honor to be cashed and a shift would be worse.

Quote

4. If partner leads low and dummy holds the trick with A, K or Q and you have a lower honour: encourage???

You encourage if you think a continuation of this suit is what you want. Discourage if you want something else.

Quote

5. If partner leads an honour & dummy has the next lower touching honour: give "Count". Eg A led. Dummy has Qxx.

So this one can have differing opinions from different experts. Say partner has AKxxx, dummy tracks Qxx. If you are giving "count", then your high can be 2 cds or 4 cds. With 2, he really wants to give you a ruff, but if your signal was 4, his 2nd honor gets ruffed and sets up the Q. How can you get this right?
So personally, in this situation, my normal signal is attitude, not count, I only encourage with doubleton and discourage with xxx/xxxx. Except 5 level+ where I give count.

[Knurdler]

Thanks for the replies. They confirm my general undertstanding ie encourage if I want partner to continue the same suit, or I think a shift is a bad idea. Discourage if I want a shift or I think a continuation is a bad idea.

I know the experts are not keen on rules. As a non expert, I find them very helpful to enable me to play at reasonable pace and accumulate experience in judgement. Without “rules” or guidance if you will, I spend too long trying to work out whether to encourage or discourage.

For example, my reading suggests:
If partner leads low against a trump contract, then the “rule” is third hand high. If partner leads low and dummy holds the trick with the jack or lower, then I can make several assumptions. 1. Partner does not have the ace. 2. Partner is unlikely to be able to win the next round of this suit. 3 It follows that there is not much point in encouraging for a ruff 4. If I cannot beat the jack, partner knows that I cannot help in this suit. 5. It follows that there is no point in me showing attitude and I should give count.

If we change this example to dummy holds the trick with the ace and I have the king, I think I should encourage in case partner has the queen or jack. Am I right?

If we change this example to dummy holds the trick with the king and I have the queen. I know partner does not have the ace but he might have the jack. I need advice what to signal?

If we change this example to dummy holds the trick with the queen and I have the jack. I know partner does not have the ace. I wonder if partner has led away from the king. Again I need advice what to signal?

[mycroft]

Rules are good. You need to know the rules (okay most of them, some are just stupid). But as my mother told me (about society, about courtesy, about a number of things) - you need to know the rules so that you know when you're breaking them. Breaking them should be *intentional*, and you should *know why*.

I mean, eventually you get to the point where you "instinctively" know the right answer, whether it is "following the rule" or not, and there's no conscious thought process. But the expert can, in fact, if they are asked, work out what "instinct" told them and explain why they chose what they did.

(not going down the sidetrack of "We rarely signal, but when we do, it's 'what partner needs to know'." "Yes, but when you do, *what method do you use*?")

As far as "I have the queen" goes, you have to judge "chance partner led from the Jack" (or Ace, at least in NT) against "is there a switch that would be better?" and signal accordingly. As you were writing with "I have the king, Ace won on board", there's a reason *why* you want a continuation (I get the next trick) and a reason why you don't want a switch (I'd like to get that trick before declarer pitches the loser). It's just harder with "Q under winning K on dummy" - again, for the reasons you give. You're doing well, in other words.

Part of the reason there's no "right answer" is that defence is hard, and there are different partnership styles. "How likely partner will lead from Jxx(x)" is not a universal, even with the same hands. "How likely partner will lead from Kxx(x)" is also a question that varies between players - and this strongly affects "what suit do I lead in 1NT-3NT (or 1♠-3♠; 4♠) when my two options are Kxxx and Jxxx?" And *that* (and the estimated HCP your side holds) affects your decision on whether to encourage with Qx(x) - maybe not all that much, but it does.