The following came up the other day. I had agreed to play o/e and was dealt:
: J982
: 63
: AK82
: JT4
You can probably already guess where this is going, as neither the 8 nor the 2 is an odd card. Presumably those who regularly play o/e discards have an agreement that when you only have even spots, one of them is "odder" than the other. That's what we do with standard carding: If I hold AK42 then it's true that neither the 4 nor the 2 looks very high, but the 4 is higher than the 2. If we are playing upside down carding and I hold AK87 then neither the 8 nor the 7 looks very low, but the 7 is lower than the 8. In this same spirit, it seems that when playing o/e discards, and when holding the AK82, that neither the 8 nor the 2 looks very odd, but one of them should be thought of as odder than the other.
As it happened, it all went fine on this hand, but no thanks to signalling agreements. They just got too high in 3NT and sooner or later, later in this case, someone had to play a diamond.
: J982
: 63
: AK82
: JT4
: KQ643
: A987
: T4
: Q3
The opening lead was the
9, riding to the A. Then a small
to the A, a
back to the Q and partner's K. Now a small
from the board. I am pretty sure that I do not want to toss from either black suit so I will now be playing some
. I don't have and odd
(well, except for the K, I suppose) so I would really like it if one of my two
spots were odder, meaning less discouraging, than the other.
As I say, no doubt those who regularly play o/e discards have worked this out since it seems to come up pretty often, I just don't know what, if anything, is standard.
The bidding, fwiw: After three passes my Rho opened 1
and my Lho jumped to 3NT, passed out. A bit weird, but sometimes opponents are weird, we still have to deal with it.
