Defensive Carding Agreements

[rod]

Here are my preferred agreements for defensive carding after the opening lead.

We play reverse Smith echo in notrump contracts, and tend to show suit preference when following suit in trumps.

Aside from that our signals are reverse attitude, standard count and standard suit preference. Our choice of these will depend on what we think partner most likely needs to know; however when partner leads it's never count.

Our signals may be random or misleading when we think the information is more useful to declarer than to partner.

I like this because it's simple and promotes actively thinking about the logic of each situation!

[rod]

Regarding suit preference in trumps, here's an example success story with feedback from strong players:

https://bridgewinners.com/article/view/attagirl/

Barry Rigal's comment refers, I believe, to the old-fashioned meaning of a trump echo, that you have a third trump and a desire to ruff something.