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.
I. 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
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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
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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
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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