"Attitude" is the unfortunate label many players have been taught misdescribing a card-playing convention that has nothing to do with the emotion the word implies. Whether you are thrilled by partner's lead or horrified is irrelevant to the signaling process. Just like in bidding, defensive leads and signals are an exchange of information designed to lead to an effective solution. One can think of this as defensive Q & A where the signal one uses (the answer) depends on the question posed either by partner or by the hand pattern against which you are defending.

Since there are only three possible questions, there are only three kinds of signals in the Bridge universe when following or discarding.*

• Honor Signal
• Suit Preference Signal
• Count Signal

Each of these is mutually exclusive on any given trick. In other words you can't use more than one of them simultaneously. One can, however, be called upon to use perhaps all three of them at various times during a hand.

Now, considering how many conventions you've had to learn for the bidding, learning just three for following suit should be a snap. Let's see one simple example of each.

* It's critical to understand the difference between following to a suit and leading it - we're talking about the former here. We'll talk about the information imparted by leads of a suit another day.

Hand One

In Hand One, West leads his fourth best, hoping to establish just one winner (in addition to the possible high trump winner) by finding partner with any touching honor, driving out any higher cards declarer might hold. Good plan. When Declarer flies up with dummy's A, partner East must cooperate by letting West know whether he or Declarer owns the touching honor West can't see. The K is said to be "touching" because it would continue the sequence (no gaps) if held by the same hand that originally lead the suit.

By convention, East indicates this by playing a disposable card that is a bit higher than
necessary (the 7) – an Honor Signal. This makes all the difference in Hand One.

When West gets in with the failing trump finesse, he needs to know how to continue. Swap the K for the A (keeping the same hand pattern) and West must switch to a club. If this had been the case, East would have played his lowest diamond on the first trick to signal that he did not hold the touching honor, giving West just enough information to know that a switch was needed.

Hand Two

In Hand Two, West leads the same suit with the same plan, but this time, dummy's singleton forces a re-evaluation. Continuing the suit will not yield a winner, so there is no reason for East to tell partner about a touching honor. What partner needs to know in this position is whether switching to another suit is called for and if so, which suit. We do this with a Suit Preference Signal.

By convention, the play of an unusually high or unusually low card in this situation suggests that partner lead the higher or lower of the remaining two non-trump suits. Having no preference at all, play a middle card.

In Hand Two, East could probably induce a heart ruff by following with the 9, but hey, let's be flashy and vulgar, and toss the K. If partner doesn't switch to the higher suit with a signal this strong, get a new partner.

Hand Three

In Hand Three, we face partner's face card sequence lead (ace from ace-king, by partnership agreement). But this time, neither the Suit Preference Signal nor the Honor Signal can apply, since

1. The equal card, the Q, is visible in dummy,
2. And with the opening leader holding so few hearts, East can't be void. It is most unlikely that South opened 1NT with a seven-card heart suit;
3. And since very few Souths would open 1NT with a singleton diamond, a trick two switch is not mandated as it was in Hand Two.

So only one question remains: How are the diamonds distributed? West should reason that if East has two diamonds and a trump higher than dummy's, the contract is as good as set. If not, West will have to wait for something else to go wrong for declarer.

By convention, suit followers give count by playing high-low to signal an even number of cards (when following to a non-trump suit). With an odd number of cards, we play up the line starting with the lowest. In Hand Three, your brilliant toss of the 9 under partner's A will lead to the ultimate set when partner continues with his K, sees your lower card, realizes Declarer is the one with three diamond cards, and gives you the crushing overruff.

You are so good.