Promise of an honour

You can, if you wish, adopt also the old whist philosophy of promising an honour when you lead a card which is the smallest in the suit ( against a suit contract ). So, holding A Q 5 4 and facing a partner who has led the 2, we could probably judge that he holds two other cards one of which is the king. If you adopt this strategy you must be prepared to take MUD leads on board. What are these?

Picture yourself holding 7 5 2 in a suit you are going to lead against a trump contract because your partner has bid it. You can't lead the 7 as you would later be petering showing two cards in the suit: a lie. You can't lead the 2 as you would be promising an honour: another lie. So you must lead the 5 and on the second round of the suit play the 7---Middle, Up Down or MUD for short.

'Oh what a tangled web we weave.....' It's easier not to bother, you say. Not so. Adopt the signalling arrangement with your partner that suits you best and stick to it---for a while anyway. You'll be amazed how much you discover about partner's hand and consequently, about declarer's.

You should now be all fired up to look at the final aspect of signalling we mentioned earlier---Discarding.