Defense is tough for several reasons. A frequent reason is lack of agreement. Pat and I had a success today but we had not discussed it before so we were a bit lucky.
Here is my hand:
AKJT7
T98
43
632
Rho opened 1NT, Lho raised to 3NT, I am on lead.
The problem is obvious. I want partner to throw the Q if she has it, and otherwise give count.
We have not discussed this. So what do I do?
I led the A, dummy came down with 654, partner played the 2. We are playing udca, that we have discussed. But still?
I decided that 2 was count and denies the Q, so declarer has Qxx and I need to switch, and, wonderfully, that was correct.
Just for the fun of it, I went to the literature. Old literature since I am old.
The first two books I tried were Bridge, a 600+ page collection of articles from1998, and Defensive Bridge Play, a shorter but still lengthy book by Kanntar, from 1974.
In Bridge: Mark Horton has an article on leads against NT. He says the A asks for attitude and the K for count. He doesn't say which asks for the drop of the Q but usually that goes with asking for countL
Kantar says that the lead of the A asks for the drop of the Q, and lacking the Q, give count. The lead of the K asks for attitude.
I have not looked elsewhere, but my feeling is that there are plenty of people who play it one way, and plenty of others who play it the other. I am pretty sure that Goren played that the A asks for the drop of the Q.
I have no strong opinion about which is right, or even which way could be considered standard. Well, I just now looked up Bridge World Standard. They say the A asks for an honor drop or, lacking an honor, a count signal.
Incidentally, every blue moon or so someone opens a gambling 3NT. These conventions are off against a gambling 3NT.
My purpose with this note is to advertise the importance of agreements. I think that A asking for a drop or count is more or less common in my neck of the woods (near Baltimore) but it is far from universal.
The hands today were great.
