LEARNING CENTER

2. Partner's first discard seems to indicate a spade card, so you have no reason to protect that suit. Clubs might be a source of tricks and you might need to help partner protect the heart suit as well if partner has to come down to a singleton Q. 

K. Your play of the 10 is the lowest of touching honors, but how does partner know that? Discouraging in diamonds or clubs won't tell the whole story (although declarer is more likely to play on clubs next, so discarding a low diamond is better than a club). Partner made a great lead, make sure you help him continue the great defense. 

The full deal

Vul: Dir:	872  AQJ863  86  97
653  972  J64  K852		KQJ10  54  Q7532  63
	A94  K10  AK7  AQJ104

8. You'd love to throw away a low diamond, but this is your lowest one available. You need to guard both hearts and clubs, so you should play diamonds. What do you do if declarer plays three rounds of diamonds next? You should throw away hearts (the suit you don't know about) rather than clubs (the suit where you can see the four clubs in dummy). 

9. You aren't risking throwing away a trick in a suit contract; on this deal you want partner to know where your values are. When signaling that you like a suit, use the highest card that isn't a trick. With touching cards, make it easier for partner by playing the highest one.  On deal 3 we played the 8 which was intended as low. Since we are trusting partner to look at the available spot cards, we should make an effort to be as clear as possible.

K. When discarding, you can play the highest of touching honors to show a sequence. In this case, you aren't throwing away a trick since you can't take more than one diamond with the dummy only having two (and lots of trump). Make the signal as clear as possible.