BRIDGE WORLD STANDARD DEFENSE

Bridge World Standard Defense is a set of defensive-carding agreements based on the methods most popular among American experts. It is used as a format, style, and partnership agreement for defensive card-play. The advantage of a Standard Defense is that it permits both partners, who are acquainted with the format, to readily conform to the standards of the agreement without much prior discussion. This interprets into a situation where both partners readily understand the leads, signals, and discards of the other player.

The Bridge World Standard Defense agreement is not complicated and conforms to most standard partnership agreements with very few deviations.

 

	1. Opening Leads
	A. Against Suit Contracts
	1. Honor Leads
	King from Ace-King; otherwise, top from a sequence; highest equal from an interior sequence
	2. Spot-Card Leads
	third highest from even length; lowest from odd length
	3. Alarm-Clock Leads (to suggest an unusual situation, such as a ruff possibility)
	fourth highest from five or six cards; fifth highest from seven cards
	B. Against No Trump Contracts
	1. Honor Leads
	Ace requests unblock or count signal; Queen requests Jack; highest equal from non-Ace sequences and interior sequences
	2. Spot-Card Leads
	fourth highest; second highest from weak suits
	II. Later Leads
	A. Against Suit Contracts
	1. Honor Leads
	King from Ace-King; otherwise, highest equal from sequences and interior sequences
	2. Spot-Card Leads in opening leader's suit
	high from remaining doubleton; low from remaining tripleton
	3. Spot-Card Leads in a new suit
	third highest from even length; lowest from odd length
	B. Against No Trump Contracts
	1. Honor Leads
	highest equal from sequences and interior sequences
	2. Spot-Card Leads in opening leader's suit
	original fourth highest
	3. Spot-card Leads in a new suit
	attitude
	III. Signaling Techniques or how to send messages
	A. Attitude Signals
	low discourages; high encourages
	B. Count Signals
	high even; low odd
	Exception: in the trump suit, upside-down count
	C. What a Count Signal shows
	present count
	D) Suit-Preference Signals
	high prefers higher suit; low prefers lower suit
	IV. Signal Meanings or when to send which message
	A. When following to partner's lead
	attitude
	B. When following to declarer's or dummy's lead
	count
	C. When Playing Trumps
	count
	D. When Discarding
	In general:
	from sequences and interior sequences with significant trick-taking ability, highest equal
	First Discard in a particular suit
	attitude
	Second Discard in a particular suit
	count
	Discard relating to a different suit
	suit-preference
	E. When splitting honors as second hand
	King from Ace-King; otherwise highest equal
	F. Throughout the Defense
	1. Special situations where count takes precedence
	at trick one against a suit slam, after a King-lead
	2: In general:
	unusual play shows unusual holding or requests unusual play

 

 

 

 

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