[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.