Dealer: West Vul: None MP Scoring

West
Pass
Pass
4
Pass

North
2
Pass
4

East
3
3
Pass

South
3
3
Pass

Trump Promotion Signalling

Rotated to South declarer: originally board: 30

West got off to a fine lead with the

J, declarer playing small, East studying dummy and mentally reviewing the auction.
East-West signalling emphasized "Count".
East 3

bid announced 4+ hearts.
East would normally show an EVEN number of hearts (highest of spot cards is EVEN, lowest if ODD) by playing the

8 at trick one (thereby denying a 5th heart).
There was immediacy of declarer drawing trump and running spades.

West, from the auction raise to 4

could be expected to have 3+ clubs and fewer than 4 hearts.
On holding the lead, West eyed East's

8, the dummy and reviewed the auction as well.
West led next

T, dummy played low and East overtook with

K, in case West had had only two hearts.
East's

A was cashed.

East is looking at 6 clubs and West is looking at 3 clubs.
If, to East's

K lead, declarer plays the

7 and West shows count with spotcard

6 (low for odd), a lazy East might presume West holding 'cheap/stingy' and 'lazy' original

AJ62 holding, from which a CLEAR (given the auction)

J (high) would have shown EVEN club count.

On this deal, West bid 4

(promising at least 3).
If West KNOWS that East has precisely 6 clubs, better than to test East's memory of the auction would be to overtake the

K with the

A and returning a club [towards setting trump promotion timing (East on lead after taking precisely two club tricks)].

East's

Q held the next trick and the 4th heart promoted West's trumps

T952 to a third (and unavoidable) downtrick.

Links: