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On-Demand Cards Deck printing service?
I'm designing a card-based rpg game and I'm looking for an equivalent to http://lulu.com but for printing online cards on demand.
The card would be either playing cards like Magic or similar, or Tarot cards (big cards).
Any suggestions? Any feedbacks on the suggested services?

I originally posted there (see the comments) : http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/7313/on-demand-cards-deck-printing-service

Artscow.com is the site I always hear about. I've never used it but it's constantly mentioned on boardgamegeek.com as the place to go for printing custom cards. See:
http://www.artscow.com/photo-gifts/card/multi-purpose-cards-rectangle-394

Artscow is pretty darn expensive for what you get (both quality of materials and quality of printing itself).

You mean the paper isn't good quality?

@Klaim - yes, the paper isn't a great quality. And the printing itself is much blurrier than I would expect for their price.

What makes Artscow worth it, in my opinion, is the promotions. You can often get things like 30% off or free shipping. Check their "Special Offers" page.

http://www.drivethrucards.com/ does on-demand card printing, for card games and also arbitrary decks of cards and tiles that might be used in other games.
(disclosure: I used to work for this company)

Are we talking testing, demonstration or production?
If this is just for testing gameplay I suggest you go for an even cheaper solution than Mark suggested. Assuming you some other cards in that size then just print yours on normal paper and sleeve them together with the real playing cards. At this stage all you need is a cheep way to test out potentially numerous revisions.
EDIT: I recently discovered a card game by the name of "Summoner Wars". It is self published by the designer (Colby Dauch) using some card printing service (in China I think). You could ask him what service he uses or could recommend. You know, from designer to designer...

I need production, I know I could use my own tools to make testing ones. My problem is more to get quality card printing, with curved borders (sorry for my poor english) and thought-for-cards paper.

@Klaim: I've edited in an idea that might help you.

I have found that most folks in the hobby industry are pretty forthcoming about printing services and answering questions.  I've asked multiple folks at multiple small hobby companies this kind of question, so asking a designer seems like a fruitful approach.

For small quantities (for example during beta testing), you can print using any photo-printing service. Two cards per 4x6 photo is a reasonable size, they're durable enough for a couple of games at least, and super-cheap. For even pilot production, you'd want a different solution, though.

Printer Studio is a good source. they have file downloads onsite edition and previews for the whole deck before you order. http://www.printerstudio.com/unique-ideas/blank-playing-cards.html

I looked at these sites and found them to be helpful.
From the RPG site, posted by AceCalhoon

A quick Google search reveals:
The Game Crafter
Guild of Blades Retail Group
From the sites, it sounds like there are some issues with producing cards on demand that lead to a slightly lower quality than traditional publishing.

I have had good experience with The Game Crafter and it had much better prices than Artscow when I was looking.

I've been looking into this a bit myself, and Superior Print on Demand http://www.superiorpod.com seems like a good candidate.  I haven't tried it out yet, but I'm probably going to be giving it a try soon.

Seems interesting indeed. Too bad they don't have tarot card size yet.

I was just looking at them and they now have the Tarot card size.  It's at the bottom of their Custom Card Decks section.

@jjb: Did you try them out yet? What was the result?

@Hennes no, sorry, I haven't yet.  I've had some trouble with the artwork on that project and have gotten derailed.  I'm going to try and get another run at that project on January and will post here if I use this service.

I have used this service to print out a prototype of a card game just this past year. My experience was mixed, the construction and print quality of the card was very good. Unfortunately they had incorrectly printed my order twice, with one set of cards having the wrong backs. To their credit, they showed good customer service attempting to correct their mistake (twice) at no cost to me. As such, I would use them again.

You might consider makeplayingcards.com, they offer a variety of printing options as well as fully customizable fronts and backs of cards. You can choose a variety of materials for the cards as well as a number of different sizes. I used them a little while back to make a megaman themed deck of playing cards, but I have no doubt that they could also be used for CCG cards as well.


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Where can I find reusable white playing cards for prototyping?
The question title says it all : Where can I find reusable white playing cards for prototyping?
I find services online to generate cards but not reusable white cards (that you can write on and erase later).

While it doesn't directly answer your question of where to get reusable playing cards, I have helped friends play-test card games before, and we have always just grabbed a handful of junk Magic common cards (because who doesn't have thousands of those lying around?), put them all into sleeves, and then slipped pieces of paper between the face of the card and the sleeve.  One of my favorites is taking a stack of note cards, cutting them in half, and using each half for a card face.
Now you can just change out the slips of paper when you want to update a card, and you can just recycle the old slips of paper afterwards.  When we've been short of paper, we've even cut up grocery bags, or written on the backs of receipts or used envelopes, its all the same.
Once a card is nice and stable, you can print off a nicer version and slip it into a sleeve and card if that's what you want.

That sounds very challenging, given that your erasable cards would need to NOT erase themselves during shuffling.
I'm designing a card-heavy game myself, and at the moment, my plan for prototyping is to print the cards on light cardstock (I have a laser printer) and then cut them out manually.  I don't expect them to last particularly long, but for the prototyping phase, I don't need them to.  The downside is it's a bit labor intensive (though I figure a small guillotine-style paper cutter will ameliorate that), but the cost in materials will be negligible.  Would something like that be an option for you?

It would but I was hoping I could find such a tool before getting to this obvious solution. I'd love to not have to spend tons of paper on trial and error...

Plastic Projector Sheets Cut to sizes you need. You would only be able to use dry markers, or maybe ink pen, but whichever surface you decide to use pen marks would probably be left behind.
Pro:

Basic erasable cards or portable flexible 'white boards'
(You can probably also use inkjets on them and erase them after as well, but that remains to be tested.)

Con:

It is transparent
If you are going to store the information on these sheets for a long time, or shuffling, consider buying card protectors, like those for trading cards.

I use this all the time for flowcharting.
(You can put a white sheet of paper behind each sheet.btw)

You can get around the transparency issue by pasting some kind of backing on one side.

One technique that works ok is to get an old pack or two of playing cards and a roll of sticky labels, and just stick labels over the faces.  You only get one use, but the labels are quite easy to peel off and replace.

source: Stack Exchange

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Prismatic Piper card availability in Commander Draft
I've been planning to organize a Commander Legends draft with a few people at work. I've been looking into just how the drafting works with this format (it has a few oddities to account for the commander format, after all) and I have a few pracical conserns over The Prismatic Piper.
The sources I've been looking at indicate that you have the same level of access to the Piper as to Basic Lands. However, it doesn't seem that they're as readily available, but rather come in the draft packs same as any other card. Be that, at a special rarity, averaging about 6 per pack, replacing a common (as far as I've gathered).
Lets say I organize an 8 player draft and bring a booster box and a land station.
What happens, is someone needs a Prismatic Piper?
Do they just grab one from another players draft pool?
I get that it's propably just draft chaff, bit just feels... wrong.
A Card Game Base guide suggest that people wouldn't need to pick these cards, but they still seem to be part of the 20 draftable cards?

The Prismatic Piper appears roughly in one per six packs. So that means you’ll usually get around 6 of them in one booster box. This should be enough for everyone, since you don’t need to actually spend picks on them. However, if you’ll need more you can just use proxies during the draft.

Isn't this answered by the quote in your question? "just use proxies during the draft"

@PhilipKendall Kind of, but kind of not. I would have assumed that there would be some sort of plan to not need a proxy in almost every case (assuming everyone hoards their draft cards like a dragon hoards gold, but nobody actively drafts Pipers despite needing them). I'd understand proxies when there's need for more Pipers than were opened, but the a case where there are enough Pipers in the pod, but not in the right piles, still conserns me a bit. Also, to be clear, I'm sure this wouldn't pose an actual problem (like a fist fight over a commong card) in our playgroup.

Quoting from this SCG article: "[Gavin] Verhey even noted that the card was rarely needed in playtest drafts when creating the set." I'd put this down as a problem to worry about when it happens.

Since you said you have practical concerns over this, let's look at this from a practical standpoint.
There are 48 guaranteed legends (commanders) per box, plus a few that'll be foils, etc.  Chances are pretty high you will find legendary creatures in every color (I'd say it's almost certain to happen).  Granted, not every player will see every legendary creature during the draft, but they should see a fair bit, usually enough to find something usable.
But there's always a chance they won't find something.  That can happen for one of two reasons, either a player drafted poorly or you got the most color-imbalanced box of Magic cards ever shipped (ie. you got say all green stuff for your non-legendary cards and only blue commanders).  Far more likely is draft error or draft stubbornness, ie. sticking with say green because you got one really nice green card but all of the packs coming around don't have any usable green cards, just some nice blue and black stuff (a good indicator you should give up on green and pick up the blue and black shinies, let everyone else fight over and dilute the green among themselves).
And some people are stubborn and will draft to their own detriment or just get ridiculously unlucky and will need a Prismatic Piper.  Hopefully since no one will need the full 60 cards they drafted to make a 60 card deck (you will need some lands) and the unlucky player can borrow one.  You should expect between 3-5 Pipers to get opened and I highly doubt all of them will get used (if 3-5 people in an 8 player pod need that as a commander, draft mistakes were made or you got a horrible booster box, if people need a 3/3, 5 CMC creature for their 59, they also probably drafted poorly if they can't find better creatures than that).  The point here is someone should be able to share.  I can't think of any play group I've been a part of where someone wouldn't let another player borrow an unused card for a couple hours.
Finally, in case you get the absolute worst box of Commander Legends ever printed and you need every single Piper you get (or you get none at all and still need one), just proxy it.  It's going to be a commander so shouldn't get shuffled in a deck so you can grab one of the advertisement cards and a Sharpie and make a proxy.  You'll survive for a couple games of Magic that way.
And if the thought of the remotest possibility that you will need to proxy a card offends you, you can always buy a few online and bring them with you.  Right now they cost about $0.10 (USD) so grab a handful and be done worrying about it.
TL/DR: chances are pretty low you will truly need Pipers at all.  Chances are even lower that you will need them and not have a spare.  Chances are still lower that you will need one, not have one available and can't proxy one or buy a few extra ahead of time.  If you get to that point, I don't have any more practical advice I can give you.

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Do [spoilers] leave a corpse when they die?
Since the quetion is about a mechanic revealed in Chapter 3, I'll leave most of it in the spoilers.

 We recently added Inhabitants to our game. The rules say that when they die, we "turn over the token representing them." Does this turned over token count as a corpse for items that would care about corpses?

 Inhabitants will not create a corpse.

The term "corpse" is mentioned one time in the rulebook (not counting an example haunt), in the Dying section. This refers specifically to one of your traits moving to the skull, which kills the character and creates a corpse.

DYING
Once the haunt begins, if any of your traits moves to the skull, then
  you die. Tip over your figure on your tile. DROP all your Items,
  Omens, and Objects. You are now a corpse.
Even if the traitor dies, as long as the monsters can complete the
  haunt’s goals, the monsters still get their turn (under the traitor’s
  control) and the traitor can still win.

From the Rulebook PDF

 Your traits refers to the traits of a player's character.

As the rules concerning dying are explained before the inclusion of Inhabitants, the rules on their deaths may be open to debate. Inhabitants do leave a ghost in the event of their death, and as the Inhabitant tokens do have a side that marks whether the inhabitants are alive or dead and that Inhabitants do not return to following games in the campaign, I believe it’s fair to say that inhabitants do leave a corpse when killed.

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Drop or Discard in Mansion of Madness?
One of the mythos cards in the game says that the investigator is out of ammo and that she needs to discard her weapon. Would you interpret this as the card should be removed from the game as oppossed to the cards that says the investigator needs to drop the item, ie. in the current room.
I would have said remove the card if it wasn't for that the investigators have an action called "discard" where they actually drop the items in the current room.

I interpret that card as "Discard means discard. Place in the discard pile."
The action is something that players can do to leave equipment cached for each other.
The mythos card is an act of aggression carried out by the Keeper. It probably costs Threat. There is also zero support in the fiction for a weapon becoming reloaded by being dropped.
EDIT: OK. So, I played Mansions last night for the first time in a while, and came up with this card. It's clearly Discard on the Mythos card and Drop in the Investigator action list. There's no confusion here at all, no interpretation necessary.

Seems a bit harsh in relation to the cost for the keeper on the other hand weapons are a real pain for the keeper :) I believe you are right though

Yep, you discard the weapon.

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Torches and altars
I was so sure during today's game that the torch could destroy an altar but when I looked through the rules I couldn't find it anywhere. Have I only dreamed it or is it there somewhere in the rules?

There is no such rule that I've been able to find.  I've checked both the rules and the scenario setups (both player and Keeper).
Allowing an altar to be destroyed would make the game significantly harder for the Keeper.
To my knowledge, the torch doesn't destroy any other objects, it just sets fires which are a significant environmental issue for the players to deal wih.

Think my mind got confused. In scenario 2 a well placed torch in a room with an altar can do a lot of harm to the keeper.

@Ska - A fire will affect monsters, but a dropped torch will not.

True, but the torch lets you start a fire...


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What happens if a player has 5 cards and forgets to exchange them in Risk?
We had a situation where a player had 5 cards but forgot to turn them in at the beginning of the turn.  Other player noticed after first player had already attacked and conquered at least one territory.  Is there an official rule for this?  If not, is there a good house rule?

There are cases where cards can be turned in during a turn; for example, if conquering another player results in the victor having more than four cards. In this case, the rules say the cards should be redeemed immediately, the new armies placed, and the turn continued.
I think if someone has started their turn and failed to redeem cards they were required by rule to redeem they should have to do so immediately upon someone noticing. This could provide an advantage because they’ll have the knowledge of how a couple if rounds went, but often armies are all stacked in a giant group.
If they finish their turn and no one notices,  when they do ultimately redeem I say they should get the number of armies they were originally entitled to and not a larger number—which would be the case if other players have redeemed since then. The reason is that sandbagging turn ins to get higher army counts is why turn-in at five cards is required in the first place.

I like this.  What do you think of adding in that the mid-turn armies must be placed with armies that that you placed at the beginning of the turn?

I could not find an official rule to cover a missed mandatory action in the rules:
http://www.hasbro.com/common/instruct/risk.pdf
However, some house rules to cover the situation are:

Revert back to the start of the turn. (only applicable if only a small number of moves were played since the missed mandatory action)
Wait until the next turn, and make sure they turn the cards in.


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Cold contract in bridge
A cold contract usually means that a contract, which makes on most reasonable lines, as the cards lie. You hear people say, "He managed to find a line to go down in a cold contract".
(Note: the meaning could slightly differ based on region etc).
I am curious, how this term came into being. There is a past BBO forums thread: http://www.bridgebase.com/forums/topic/43444-what-is-a-cold-contract/ but that does not seem to help.
Does anyone know the origin of this term?

Yes; that link is to a rant not much use for anything.

Official Encyclopedia of Bridge, 6th Edition (2001) lists:

Cold contract: Bridge slang for an easily makeable contract.

Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 8th Edition (c 1980) lists as sense 5 b:

Cold: certain, sure viz The actors knew their lines cold a week before opening.

OED Compact Edition (1928) does not list any comparable sense for the word cold.

Thanks, but I am more interested in the origin, rather than the meaning.

@Aryabhata: That would seem to be sense 5.b from Webster's, originating between the 1920's and 1980 during the heydays of Culbertson and Goren. I certainly recall the term being common Bridge slang from the mid-70's in Southern Ontario if memory serves honestly.

I am guessing it is probably in the 1930s... but perhaps you are right.

The OED does have a related sense:
'Without preparation, preliminary performance, etc. Usu. quasi-adv.
1896.. "I'm an easy runner till it comes to the high jump and then I quit cold."'
It was also apparently used between the wars for plays that opened without a preliminary tryout.
So perhaps a contract that can be made without any preliminary setting up, or having to decide which course is better,  fits the description. If you want a more precise answer you could ask on English.SE.


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Origin of Puppet Stayman
There are many variations, but I presume there was an initial original version of puppet stayman.
Does anyone know who came up with it, and why it is named as such?
(A google search has been unrevealing)

According to Wikipedia:

Puppet Stayman, initially developed by Neil Silverman and refined by Kit Woolsey and Steve Robinson in 1977-78

If you can locate copies of the April 1977 and April 1978 editions of The Bridge World magazine that might have more details on the history of the system.
As to why it's called puppet stayman, this page has an answer from the editor of The Bridge World:

In The Bridge World's terminology, a puppet is a transfer that systemically requires partner to make the cheapest bid. Puppet Stayman is so-called because in the original version a 2♣ response to 1NT required opener to bid 2♦ (as in Gladiator before it).


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Can I voluntarily kill my own units?
My question is about the second edition, if it makes a difference.
From the Supply section:

A player is never allowed to take any action in the game that would
  cause him to exceed his actual supply limit as dictated by his
  position on the Supply track (such as mustering, marching or
  retreating, all explained later).

From the Mustering section:

A player may never muster a unit that would create or  expand an army
  beyond his actual supply limit. In other words,  if mustering a new
  unit would cause a player to have more (or  larger) armies than
  allowed by his position on the Supply track,  that unit cannot be
  mustered.

From the Combat/Retreat section:

A player may not retreat his defending units to an area containing
  friendly units if this would cause him to exceed his Supply limit. If
  a player’s only option is to retreat to such an area, he must first
  destroy as many retreating units as necessary to be compliant with his
  Supply limit after retreating to the area. After taking such losses,
  he may retreat the remaining units.

So, this all seems pretty cut and dry to me that I can't have more units in a region than would be allowed by supply unless I'm forced to by some situation, in which case I must immediately kill off units until I'm under the supply limit again.
But I'll ask my question anyway, which is: Since the game allows for scenarios in which you must kill units due to supply constraints, is there anything that suggests I can just simply sacrifice units?
For instance, if I wanted to turn an army of four (region A) into an army of three to allow an army of four to form elsewhere on the board (region B) I currently have to march one unit out of A to somewhere else and march a new unit into B; compare this to simply taking footman off the board from A and using a march to reinforce B.

No. Nowhere do the rules mention being able to voluntarily remove units from the board. You can do a text search to verify this yourself (destroy, remove, sacrifice, voluntary, etc. do not show any meaningful results). The default for board game rules is, anything not permitted is forbidden (since it is quite impossible to do the converse)

Yep, 1873 is correct - you can't kill your own units at will. For starters, just think about how much the balance and layout of units would shift every time a Mustering card came up?

@DanielLim, I was considering adding to my answer the section in the rules that cover the maximum number of wooden Footman, Knights, and Ships. The rules for mustering make it clear that you cannot muster another unit of a type that has been exhausted (because all units are already on the board) until a new unit has become available by being removed from the board by combat or other means. This isn't exactly what the OP is asking, so I wasn't sure it was relevant. (The rules say you cannot muster a unit of a type if none are available, not that you cannot sacrifice a unit to make one availab


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How do Possession and Throne Room interact?
Does Throne Room cause a Possession card to give you control over two extra turns? I can see it argued both ways convincingly, so I'm looking for an authoritative answer. Google has thus far failed to get me one.
I expect this to be the same as playing the possession card twice on your turn, and related to King's Court.

The one-line answer is very poorly for the victim.

From page 3 of the Alchemy Kingdom Card Description pamphlet:
  — Possession is cumulative; if you play it twice in one turn, there will be two extra turns after this one.
Also, for reference:

However, I prefer to not play with Possession. In my experience it's not a very fun card, unless you're playing with a group of competitively-minded people who will play again if they are totally trounced, which Possession can cause to happen.

And yes, Throne Room causes you to play a card twice, and King's Court thrice, so the rules definitely would call for multiple possessed turns in this case. Crazy.

That's exactly what I was looking for. I seem to have missed that whole page while reading the rules.

The real question, speaking as a longtime Magic player, is whether it's possible to take INFINITE turns on behalf of the player to your left, or failing that, as many turns as logistically permitted by some combination of cards...

I think I could chop up and rephrase half your question as "Is it possible to take as many turns as permitted?" Yes.

@thesunneversets: Fortunately, throne room on a throne room requires 2 action cards to double, so you don't get exponential growth.

@thesunneversets: In addition to what @nmichaels said, if, while playing their turn, you force them to play a Possession card, then they (not you) take the player to their left's next turn.

Seriously. This is why I hate this card. :)

What if, while possessing the other player, you play a Possession card?
POSSESSION-CEPTION

From the pamphlet: "if you make someone play Possession during a turn in which you Possessed them, that will make that player Possess the player to his left, rather than you getting to Possess anyone further."
:)

@thesunneversets Since there are only 10 possession and 10 king court and no way to play a card more then once since they stay in play instead of going to your discard like magic, so you can't play one card multiply times in a turn so you can only take 30 turns for the player to your left.

The logic on this is very simple, "Throne Room" causes the action to take place twice. That means that "Possession" will occur once, resolve all the way through the first turn, then it will occur a second time, as if you had played another copy of the card that turn.


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How to decide if I should use a counterspell in MTG?
I always have a hard time to decide if I should use a counter spell in a given situation and one step earlier if I should save enough mana for a counter spell this round.
I am currently facing this problem with my variation of Solar Flare. The main idea of this deck is to stall the game for at least 5 to 6 rounds while building up your graveyard and overpower the opponent with fat creatures afterwards when the fifth or sixth land is out there.
My counter spell of choice is Mana Leak. My dilemma is, that I usually want to use it early in the game, because it is harder for my opponent to pay the additional mana cost and my plan is to stall him anyway in the beginning. On the downside I have used my counter spells often before the real threats are out there and my opponent feels comfortable in the middle to end game because he knows that it is unlikely that I have any more counter spells available. I also do not want to use my counter spells after round 5, because I usually need my mana in those rounds to pump out and resurrect creatures. Without any ramps in this deck I have no flexibility to save up mana each turn instead of playing my creatures.
What is the expert opinion on that dilemma? How do I decide when to use my counter spells? Can I even formulate such a strategy without knowing the deck of my opponent well?

Considering your link to Solar Flare builds, I'll assume you're talking about the Standard format as of right now.
The timing of your counters relies heavily on what deck your opponent is running.  To some extent, it does rely on knowing your opponent's deck, but most Standard decks fall into an archtype.  Recognizing those archtypes isn't too difficult if you spend some time in the format, and recognition means you'll know what some of the more commonly-run threats for those decks are.
Assuming your opponent is running aggro and is effectively racing to see if they can take you down before you can start to get some of your meaner cards (traditionally Sun Titan into a Liliana via Unburial Rites, etc.), you need to be able to survive their early game.  This may mean throwing counters away early on, on things that could build into bigger threats (e.g. Lord of the Unreal, Phantasmal Image, Stromkirk Noble, etc.) to slow them down.
Assuming your opponent is running control, you're looking for bombs and other counters.  They're doing the same thing as you; playing the waiting game, looking for the opportunity to get something game-winning through.  This often means a slow game, where each player will play a land and then pass, leaving mana open for counters and their-turn fun (like White Sun's Zenith, Blue Sun's Zenith, and Forbidden Alchemy).
Midrange decks are much harder to gauge - you'll often have to play a game before you get a good feeling for what their bombs are, what you're watching out for.
Lastly, one of the strongest things you can do is threaten a counter.  Whether or not you have one in hand (and whether or not you're even playing them, if you're still playing blue), if you leave mana open for a counter, they may not play a more threatening card for risk of it getting countered.  Never let your opponent feel comfortable - even if you've played three Mana Leaks, what's to say you don't have another counter (Dissipate, Negate, etc.), or destruction, or a Snapcaster!  For this reason, I'd caution against tapping out, as you lose this threat entirely.
One more note - there's a reason Snapcaster Mage is so popular! Every Snapcaster (ideally used) means another Mana Leak, Dissipate, Doom Blade, Go for the Throat, or Dismember that you've already used once.

Well, knowing the (approximate) deck of your opponent well will certainly help you immeasurably when deciding what to counter.  But assuming you have no idea what he's playing:
You need to understand your own game plan.  As you say, you want to survive until the sixth or seventh turn, at which point you have better things to do.  So, you'll have to counter or otherwise deal with spells which threaten to kill or severely damage you before the mid-game rolls around.  For instance, you probably won't need to counter spells like Ponder that merely improve your opponent's card selection; but you will definitely want to stop him getting down efficient turn-2 and turn-3 beaters, especially if you have no other removal in hand.
Deciding when to leave up counter mana is even harder than deciding when to counter something, but it follows the same basic principles: if I tap out now, and my opponent plays creature x, is it going to cause serious problems for my game plan?  If so, it may be better not to take the risk and keep the counter option available, even if this slows down your development.  It's a risk-reward thing - in this respect, sometimes Magic is a lot like poker...

A lot of decks solve the issue of when to leave up counter mana by just playing almost everything at instant speed. This is why Forbidden Alchemy works so well in Flare, for instance -- you can leave up counter / removal mana for your opponent's turn, and play Alchemy on his end step if he doesn't do anything relevant.

Sure, but Wizards tends not to create environments where there is no benefit to be gained from tapping out.  (At least not any more - I used to play Draw-Go back in the day when it was almost unbeatable.)  You can play as much of your game as possible at instant speed, but it would be too easy if you could play your entire game in your opponent's end step!

I always consider what is being cast and how it might impact me.  A 2/2 first striker?  I won't worry too much about it because I have other answers for that.  A 1/1 infect flyer?  That can be a pain from time to time so I might get rid of that.  As others have suggested anthems are probably not worth countering unless they're really a threat ... Honor of the Pure?  Maybe not ... True Conviction?  Countered!
You know what threats your deck can otherwise clear, so concentrate on the stuff you don't have good answers for and on things that seem key to your opponent's strategy (of which you have imperfect knowledge).

+1, but even True Conviction can be a dud if your opponent has no creatures. I think it's worth emphasizing that you can't say "always counter [card]" or "never counter [card];" you always have to consider the game state.

Absolutely @DavidZaslavsky, if my opponent has a horde and tries to cast TC ... uh yeah ... good idea to counter it.  If he's looking at an empty battlefield ... not so important.


text:
How to search opponents library when playing remote via webcam?
My brother and I are living several 100 miles apart, which makes playing MTG face to face a little difficult. We have been playing via web cam (mounted over the table) for several months now but are still facing some problems with this setup.
The most annoying one is the problem stated in the headline. If a spell allows me to search his library, I cannot really do so, because I cannot reach through the web cam. We discussed having full deck lists that we can pass on whenever this happens, but this list must be adapted each time such a spell is played, because the library is different every time.
Another problem is enslaving enemy creatures or putting enchantments on them. We created some workarounds but they are just that - workarounds.
How do others deal with this issue when playing MTG over web cam? Are there any software tools that can help us with that? We are using Skype and I considered editing the video stream directly with my web cam software, to indicate enchantments and stuff like that. This helps in many cases, but does not solve the "searching the library" problem. I am grateful for any solutions.

Enchanting/enslaving enemy creatures sounds like a clear use case for proxies. Set aside the actual card, and have the opponent put a proxy into play in the appropriate place. Way simpler than editing a video stream.

When playing with my friends, to speed the game up, we normally just ask what the strong cards of their decks are (or whatever cards have the traits we are looking for). I often find that you know your opponents deck strategy after playing the deck a couple of times so both players already have an idea of whats about to get searched for.

You need the proper tool. Webcams are not designed to keep track of MtG game states, so use a tool that can. There are many choices available MTG Online III (offical product, costs money for cards and packs), Apprentice (one of the first, but not a favorite of mine), Magic Workstation (my favorite), Magic Suitcase, Magic Studio, ...
The card manager keeps track of the game state, and the webcam allows you to observe the reactions of your opponent.

Can you elaborate on why Magic Workstation is your favorite?

OCTGN also provides a nice interface... the client itself is free; I'm not sure about the legality of playing Magic on it, but the necessary card files are readily available to torrent.

Cockatrice is an open source platform for playing MTG online.

Project description
Cockatrice is an open-source multiplatform software for playing card games, such as Magic: The Gathering, over a network. It is fully client-server based to prevent any kind of cheating, though it supports single-player games without a network interface as well. Both client and server are written in Qt 5. It is supported on Windows, Linux, and Mac OSX.
License
Cockatrice is fully GPL licensed and thus free software.
Development status
Cockatrice is under active development as of January 2015.

Game availability is very good (typically anywhere up to 1000 online users at a time and move), there are moderators to manage troll infestations, and a built in chat client to talk with other users.

FWIW, I've recently heard a fair number of people say they prefer Cockatrice over MWS and some other clients.

Could not your brother look through his library for you and vice versa? He could slowly reveal every card from his library, show them to you over the webcam, and take whatever action you tell him to. Secret searching is ultimately unnecessary because whatever you do after searching your opponent's library, the affected card(s), if any, will either go into that same player's library, hand, or into a public zone.
As for enchantments etc., the easiest solution is probably scraps of paper and a pen for enchantment names. Ask for the card text and/or run Gatherer in a browser window for card text reminders where necessary.
Edit:
Okay there are actually 2 cards that allow you to exile cards from an opponent's library face down, one of them quite recent:

Phyrexian Portal
Praetor's Grasp

I guess in those cases you can still use the above method, except the revealing player may not look at his own cards - hold the cards directly into the camera and reveal them from behind until you say stop or whatever.


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Age of Steam Expansion Board Rules
I just grabbed VASSAL to play AoS with my brother in Korea.  However the only boards they support at the moment all seem to have non-standard rules.  Paris is multi-colors.  There are these white lines that go over water.  I am generally confused :)
I am looking for a good resource for the Age of Steam expansion board rules.  I have found a few of the rules on BBG but normally people talking about the rules and not a direct link to a rule book.  Maybe they are there and I just can't find them. :-\
(PS if anyone has a source for more AoS maps for VASSAL, that would be great too)

All of the Age of Steam map rules I have seen are only the differences between the base AoS rules and the map's rules and, as I mention below, sometimes they are not complete without knowledge of the features of other expansion maps.
I do not know of a unified Age of Steam map rules resource, although depending on the designer the rules may be on BGG or on the designer's web site.  At one point I created a fairly comprehensive and up to date list of Age of Steam maps which includes designers, that might be a good place to start.
https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0ArK4vAoucRR2cHpsb09IZG9Na3FzbE1zeFhqaXlyZkE&hl=en_US
It is fairly well documented that anything that John Bohrer retains the copyright to (including the base game rules) will not be made available online.
Paris being multicolored is actually the easiest rule to manage on the France map, it just behaves like all of the colors present.  The other rules, like engineer being required to build over mountains and the non-existence of bankruptcy are less obvious.
White lines over water almost always indicate a sea route or ferry that can be built as a single track tile build at a fixed cost (which can vary by map).  If the line is dotted, it usually means that one or both of the ends of the line are towns that must be urbanized before the link can be purchased.
One of the major challenges of AoS map rules is that they all assume a certain amount of familiarity with the rules of AoS and, in many cases, with the rules of one or more expansions for AoS.  For example, the New Zealand print and play map for AoS has sea links with town terminals but it does not spell out when they are allowed to be built.  I believe this is due to some sloppy thinking on the part of the designers, as they assume an accretion of knowledge about AoS that may or may not exist for a given gamer or group.

Wow, I had no idea there were so many maps!  It's a good thing I'm not yet a completist for this game...

@pat-ludwig Yes, that is a good thing.  Many of them had very small print runs and are either very expensive or hard to find.  Plus, more maps are released every year.  It's hard to keep up...


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Whats a good way to handle multiple players bidding when playing by email?
I have recently moved away from most of my gaming friends and taken to playing by email.  We have played a few rounds of Age of Steam but the bidding at the start of each turn takes many emails just to get through.  With a time zone difference it can mean a week to do one round of bidding.
Does anyone know a similar mechanic that can work like bidding?  Or a way to do bidding through email that would be faster than each player saying their bid one at a time?

Well in a normal (at the board) game, you will find that the person who starts the bidding has the advantage, because the following players need to beat, rather than equal the first player's bid.
So, one option you have (and the one I would use) is a blind auction, where if there is a tie, then the order of bidding is the person who wins. Obviously, the way you do a blind auction is difficult over email as you cannot prevent the other person or persons from seeing your bid, unless you do one of two things

Have a 'referee' for want of a better word, who collects the bids until all are received and email the results once collected.
Have a player (possibly the final player in the bid order) act as the referee, who cannot bid themselves, but collects all blind bids.

However, I would suggest looking for one of the online board game sites that allow you to play turn-by-turn. There are a few that do this (I believe there are already questions on this topic), but I am not sure if there is one for this game.

Agree on finding a website. The Axis and Allies Members Club (AAMC)(http://www.aamc.net/bunker/) has a PBEM site that supports blind auction bidding. Each player puts in the number of their bid and the site automatically sends emails to both players indicating the winning bid, which starts the game.

You can handle the blind bid without a third party if you use a cryptographic hash function (e.g. SHA-1).  All players send the hash of their bid with some password (e.g. "adaf1621b49b6d32e4a66e74fc67312380d4caa6").  Once all the hashed bids are in then all players can reveal what their bid and password were (e.g. "5-Chimp"). Using a sealed bid website is probably the simplest option though!


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When does Urbanization occur in Age of Steam
I am second in turn order, I select Urbanization.  Do I place the city at the start of my build track phase or before the first person who builds track?

You place the new city as your first action during your Build Track phase.
On page 2 of the rules

Urbanization action:
Implemented during the Build Track phase.  This action allows this player to place one of the New City tiles on a Town before they build their track.

This is from the Warfrog edition (2002).  It seems the rules haven't changed much at all despite the plethora of editions.

Thanks Pat.  My edition of the rules is worded slightly differently which made it less clear.  Good link.


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Classic Haunted Mansion Game
I am trying to remember the name of a old haunted mansion game I played.  I remember you started in the Foyer and built the mansion as you explored out of mansion tiles.  The tiles were unique because they were elevated to have several different heights.  You were looking for chests/treasure with gold in them.  Once you found them you had to escape the mansion.
I thought it was just called Haunted Mansion but that doesn't seem to be it :)

Mystery Mansion?
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/586882/mystery-mansion
I remember playing this game. Interesting idea.

I used to play Betrayal at House on the Hill but I think this game is newer than what you are thinking. This came out in 2004.
What you're describing sounds more like Haunted House Which came out in 1962
Do you remember what year(s) you played it?

That wasn't it (closer to Haunted House though), I played it around the 80s but not sure how old it was then.


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What are the differences between Vinci and Small World?
Small World has been described as a re-implementation of Vinci, but I've heard that there are some non-trivial differences.  How do these two games differ in terms of rules/mechanics and feel of play?  (I'm not concerned with the change from Europe to a fantasy map unless it affects play.)
I'm familiar with Vinci but have never played Small World.

There is an excellent comparison of the two here.  Some highlights:

Vinci has one big set of powers and you draw two for each race.  Small World splits them into Race Powers and Abilities, preventing some combinations from occurring.
Vinci charges you two points for each race you skip over, Small World only 1.  This modifies the dynamics of which races you might choose.
The end game conditions in Vinci are reaching a certain number of points, making the length variable.  Small World has a fixed number of turns based on number of players.
Small World has different maps for different numbers of players, and you always get the same number of tokens for a race/power combo.  Vinci only had one map, but varied the number of tokens a power combo started with based on the number of players.
Small World adds a reinforcement dice which gives you a random chance to take over a single province that you wouldn't be able to conquer normally at the end of your turn.


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Does order matter when drawing player cards? (Efficient to Sequence + Epidemic)
One of the positive disease mutations in Pandemic: Legacy is Efficient to Sequence.  A disease with this mutation is cured immediately when a player discards the correct number of cards.  The rules note that this doesn't have to occur on your own turn.  (For example, another player can, on his turn, give you the last card, and you can immediately cure the disease if you are at a research station or don't need to be.)
How does this interact with drawing player cards at the end of the turn?  If one of the cards you draw is the last card you need then clearly you can cure the disease -- if you can do it on someone else's turn then you can do it during the draw phase of your own turn too.  But what happens if you draw the last card you need and an Epidemic?  There are three possibilities:

cure the disease first
resolve the epidemic first
process the cards in the order drawn

The order matters if there are currently no cubes of that color on the board -- curing the disease would also eradicate it, so the epidemic city wouldn't gain cubes if of that color.  (I realize this is a corner case, but the question has come up in our group.)

Order does not matter; you draw both cards at the same time. And if either is an Epidemic, you must resolve it first before curing a disease.
From the FAQ

If we have the 2nd beneficial mutation, exactly when can we discover the cure?

You can do it out of turn, but you can’t so it halfway through an epidemic. It’s also worth noting when drawing player cards, you’ll have to discard down to hand size before curing.

The part you quoted from the FAQ says you can't do it during an epidemic, but just after you've drawn the two cards you haven't yet started the epidemic.  Does drawing the card set the epidemic in motion immediately?  (I'm not trying to argue for a particular position; I'm just trying to resolve an apparent ambiguity before we next play.)

@MonicaCellio Although I agree "halfway through" is a strange choice of words, I can't think of a situation where you'd want to or need to do it after having resolved some of the epidemic, but before you finished resolving it. So I took "halfway through" as "after drawing the epidemic card but before completely resolving the epidemic".

I could imagine someone (now) having enough cards to cure a disease, but one of them has a sticker he'd like to use so he gambles that somebody'll pass him another card for the cure -- but then the epidemic city is that color and will set outbreaks in motion, so maybe he wants to try the cure now.  That would count as "halfway through".  It's also an extreme edge case.

We just started playing Season 2 and I see that the rules there have clarified what happens in the draw phase.  While this doesn't directly answer the question about Season 1, it might show designer intent.  The Season 2 rules (page 13) say this about drawing cards:

After doing 4 actions, draw the top 2 cards together from the Player deck. [...] If your draws include any Epidemic cards, do not add them to your hand (and do not draw replacement cards for them). Instead, immediately do the following in order:

In Season 2, the card you draw along with an epidemic does not become part of your hand until after you resolve the epidemic.  If it's not in your hand, you can't use it.  If we apply that reasoning to Season 1, then the city card drawn with the epidemic isn't part of your hand and thus is not available to be discarded.

While Pandemic Legacy Season 2 is a different game (with different rules), identical verbage exists for the corresponding step of the player's turn in the Season 1 rules (on page 11).

@KitsuneZeta oh!  We must have missed that when we were playing season 1.  Thanks.


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If an Old One takes damage while attacking my farm, do I get credit for it?
AuZtralia includes the following personality card:

Alanza Castro
  Whenever an Old One attacks one of your Farms, it suffers two damage.

The rules don't say and we couldn't find an answer online: if I have this card in play and an Old One attacks my farm, do I get credit for the two points of damage?  In a game today, an Old One with four hit points died entirely from attacking two of my farms, and we weren't sure whether I got to collect the victory points.
The wording is passive (it suffers damage, as opposed to "you deal damage"), but as far as we've seen (only played a few games so far), all other damage dealt to Old Ones is "owned".

Yes you get the credit for killing the Old One exactly as if you had attacked it.
This was verified by Martin Wallace the game designer in this thread on BGG.


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Do all players interact with the Mansions of Madness app, or does one player act as GM?
I've seen a few board or card games that use an app as part of gameplay, and they fall into two categories: ones where all players must interact with the app (for example, everybody has to touch the screen to signal "I'm done" in a turn), and ones where a single player uses the app to drive the game.  Which type is Mansions of Madness?  It sounds like the latter from the descriptions I've found (including Board Game Geek), but I prefer information to guesses.
The reason I ask is that I don't use electronics on Shabbat, and I'm trying to plan my schedule for a boardgame convention.  More broadly, I know a few people who would be challenged to use an app running on a phone because of either vision or mobility issues, and that's something I would want to take into account when planning a game with such players.

The app introduced with the second edition of Mansions of Madness is designed to replace the role of "Keeper", and as such it's best to think of the app as an automated GM.
This means the app is designed in a way that makes it possible for a player to assume that role, and be the sole player interacting with the app and updating the physical board appropriately.

When we play, we usually have a designated 'driver' that interacts with the app.
However, when an onscreen puzzle appears, we pass control to the player that is meant to be solving the puzzle. This is not necessary as you can just give instructions to the driver.
If you have access to a large screen, it's a good idea to take turns in reading aloud the encounters to keep everyone engaged


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Backgammon Statistics To Know
I recently committed to memory the likelihood of "Entering from the Bar" in a game of backgammon. i.e.
1 point defence - 97%
2 point defence - 89%
3 point defence - 75%
4 point defence - 56%
5 point defence - 31%

Besides the usual likelihood of "throwing a number x", what other statistics are there that I can learn to improve my backgammon game?

Wow...I've only played BG for fun and memorizing stats such as the above never even crossed my mind!

Even wondered why a computer or good human always seems to get the right dice thrown? Knowing the dice probabilities (in context of the board position) starts to remove the luck factor in backgammon and makes it more strategic and fun to play.

These were all more or less directly copied from the source attributed at the bottom of the answer:

Directly rolling a particular number (e.g. 2)    30.55%
Rolling a particular double (e.g. 3-3)   2.77%
Rolling a particular non-double (e.g. 5-1)   5.54%
Rolling any double   16.66%

Chance of getting off the bar with one or two pieces and X open points:
Open
Points  1 piece 2 pieces
1       31%     3%
2       55%     11%
3       75%     25%
4       89%     44%
5       97%     69%
6       100%    100%

Chance of moving X points in a single roll: (direct and indirect combined; direct alone is always 31% for 1-6 only).
Move    Direct and
        Indirect Chance
1       31%
2       33%
3       39%
4       42%
5       42%
6       47%
7       17%
8       17%
9       14%
10      8%
11      6%
12      8%
13       -
14       -
15      3%
16      3%
17      -
18      3%
19       -
20      3%
21       -
22       -
23       -
24      3%

SOURCE (and more stats): http://www.paulspages.co.uk/bgvaults/tips/dicerolls.php
More info on observed Backgammon statistics: http://www.bkgm.com/motif/stats.html

I'd learn the chances for the roll combinations. There are 36 possible rolls, (let's say of one red and one green die) as follows:

6-6:  1/36
11:   2/36 (two 6-5s)
5-5:  1/36
10:   2/36 (two 6-4s)
9:    4/36 (two 6-3s, two 5-4s)
4-4:  1/36
8:    4/36 (two 6-2s, two 5-3s)
7:    6/36 (two 6-1s, two 5-2s, two 4-3s)
3-3:  1/36
6:    4/36 (two 5-1s, two 4-2s)
5:    4/36 (two 4-1s, two 3-2s)
2-2:  1/36
4:    2/36 (two 3-1s)
3:    2/36 (two 2-1s)
1-1:  1/36

The chance of getting a total of x on the two dice is simply (6-|7-x|)/36 where |7-x| is the absolute value of 7-x.

You should always accept a double if your winning expectation from the current situation is 25% or more. You should never accept a double when you have less.

Not true in match play (first-to-N-points wins) - the take/pass point varies with the match score - or in situations where a significant proportion of your losses will be gammons and backgammons.

"Winning expectation" is not the same thing as "expected number of wins".


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Is "finesses wrong for declarer" a good reason to double a (bridge) contract?
Suppose you have a hand like (s) KJx (h) xxx (d)Axxx (c) xxx, sitting "West."
The (Standard American) bidding has been S 1 spade, N 2 hearts, S 2 spades N 4 spades. You and partner have passed so far, and E and S pass to you. Vulnerability is equal.
A book I read opined that this is a good time to double because "finesses were wrong for declarer." You have a minor spade tenace behind declarer, declarer did not support dummy's hearts, meaning your partner has "some."
I count two trump tricks and one side trick in your hand; one heart trick and one other side trick for partner, a potential two-trick "set."
Is this, in fact, a good time to double? Or are there reasons against doubling that I've overlooked?

Good question. One caveat to what you mention is that with every losing finesse by declarer you are potentially endplayed. If the defensive strength is predominantly in one hand, best not to double; make declarer guess whether the endplay is on or not, as  he may have alternative lines that fail.
Also, there are only specific circumstances in which it is correct to double for a one-trick set. As a double is so informative that Declarer can often play the hand one trick better, double only when you expect to set the contract at least two tricks.
Further, only double when the correct opening lead is already obvious (to you or partner, as the case might be). Opponents who double and then agonize over the opening lead have put themselves in the pickling jar.
The best known (and most common) counter-example to this is in matchpoints when the opponents are vulnerable in a partial that rates to give you a bad board even if it goes down one undoubled. In that case one doubles to try and get +200, as the last hope to save the board.

Just to add to what Peter said:
You should double a contract if:

It's unlikely to go down if you don't. (Lead-directing doubles)
What you stand to gain if it goes down outweighs what you stand to lose if it doesn't, remembering that your double is going to help declarer.

This is situation #2, and there are no hard and fast rules to apply here. You need to listen to the auction, and figure out how many tricks you expect them to go down, then compare the value of that to what they get if they make.
On the hand you give, you expect them to down one at most, and that's if partner produces a trick, which is far from a guarantee, and you take all of your potential tricks, which is far from certain. (This isn't a weak auction. A delayed game raise like this should be showing actual spade support and a heart suit worth showing. If you find as little as S Qxx H AKxxx in dummy, you are going to be very unhappy with your double.)
Why You Lose At Bridge, by SJ Simon, has a lot of useful advice on this subject (and many others).

On this particular hand, North rates to have 3 spades, 5 hearts, and no minor-suit shortness to go along with minimum game-forcing values. If North's hand is xxx KJxxx Kx KQx, then you can safely exit a heart every time you're on lead, likely taking one or two hearts, two spades, and a diamond (Note that this is a hand that stretched to make game, and even this dummy may allow declarer to make, e.g. when holding AQTxxx -void- QJxx Axx).
If, on the other hand, dummy shows up with Qxx AKQJx Qx xxx, you're in trouble. Your opening heart lead may have given declarer a chance to pitch two quick minor-suit losers, and you're only taking one trump trick.
So a reason not to double with this hand is this: On the auction, partner probably has two important cards. It would be surprising for partner to have two aces, and if one of their cards is the diamond king or queen, it's probably being picked up.

Let's look at the odds for doubling in various situations. This table gives scoring form on the left (total points and international matchpoints), and vulnerability on the top. In each box is W/L/P, where W is the score gained when doubling and defeating the contract with one undertrick (vs not doubling), L is the score lost when letting 4Sx make with no overtricks (vs 4S undoubled making), and P is the probability that you defeat the contract by one to make doubling a worthwhile action.
|    |      NV      |      V        |
| TP | +50/-170/77% | +100/-170/63% |
|IMPS|  +2/-5/71%   |   +3/-5/63%   |

At matchpoints, of course, if everyone is in 4S, you need a 50% chance of setting or better to make doubling worthwhile.
Of course this is a simplification; it doesn't take into account the chance of taking two undertricks or the opponents making with an overtrick. On this hand, I haven't done any simulations but I would say that you certainly won't defeat opponents on three deals out of four, and probably not on two deals out of three, but may one deal out of two; I would consider doubling when playing matchpoints but not at other forms of scoring.

Good use of a table.


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What is the "pause" rule for dummy play in tournament bridge?
My understanding is that in a bridge tournament, that the declarer must pause for some time (X seconds) after the dummy goes down, in order to study it, before playing to the first trick.
What is that time interval (i.e. what is X in terms of seconds)? Does this apply if dummy has a "forced" play such as a singleton in the led suit?
My further understanding is that East is allowed to take this pause (for X seconds) if, for some reason, declarer doesn't. Is this the case? And is East allowed to take an additional X seconds (or more) if declarer takes X seconds for study?

Related (possible dupe): http://boardgames.stackexchange.com/q/11143/1644

@TimLymington: Related but not quite a dupe. This question was about what pauses were MANDATED by tournaments. (I think it's 5-10 seconds.) The other question was, can I ask for a time out, "outside" the "system."

The Laws of Duplicate Bridge do not specifically address the pace of play following the tabling of Dummy, but rather more generally state (my emphasis):

Law 73(A)(2): Calls and plays should be made without undue emphasis, mannerism or inflection, and without undue hesitation or haste. ....
Law 73(D) Variations in Tempo or Manner
  1. I t is desirable, though not always required, for players to maintain steady tempo and unvarying manner. However, players should be particularly careful when variations may work to the benefit of their side. ....

and

Law 74(C)(7): varying the normal tempo of bidding or play for the purpose of disconcerting an opponent.

Any unduly or abnormally rapid play from Dummy (ie without consideration of the entire hand) would be a clear violation of all of these mandated Proprieties and Etiquettes, and subject to disciplinary action under Laws 73(F) and 90.
As with all occurrences of irregularities, the appropriate action is to call the Tournament Director as per Law 9.

Updated 2019-01-23
It is possible you are confusing this situation with the skip-bid pause mandated by some organizing authorities following any bid at a strictly higher level than sufficient in that denomination. It presumes that a bid skipping the level is always unexpected, and requires that:

the skip bidder announce prior to his call: "Skip bid; please pause."
the next player to study his hand for ~10 seconds before making a call.

However, except for the Rules guidance above, no such requirement is made following the opening lead and tabling of Dummy, for any organizing authority that I am aware of.

The Laws (see e.g. http://www.acbl.org/assets/documents/play/Laws-of-Duplicate-Bridge.pdf) do not require any such pause. If declarer (South in this scenario) calls for a card from dummy immediately, East should only pause in case they have a problem with the play to this particular trick (for example, if West has played the Ace in a suit, East may need to think before encouraging or discouraging continuation of that suit).
If, on the other hand, East has a clear play to the initial trick but requires time to think about the rest of the defense, they should play immediately to the first trick, but leave the card they played to the first trick face up while they think. Declarer is entitled to know whether East's problem is related to play to the first trick or not (on the other hand, this is unauthorized information to West, who must play as though they were unaware of East's pause).


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In bridge, does it make sense to "shade" one's bidding standards with a part score?
For instance, most players today bid five card majors, because that's (probably) the best way to get to a major suit game of ten tricks.
But suppose my team has a part score of 40. That means that two of a major or three of a minor will give us game. Under those circumstances, does it make sense to say that a one level bid implies four of a suit, major or minor? Because I no longer see the need for a five card major, and likewise, don't see the need for a "convenient" three card minor. Instead, every bid could be "gamegoing."
Likewise, I prefer strong no trumps. But could a weak 1NT (12-14 hcps) be better if we need to go only to the two level to complete the game?
Are there any systems or experts that advocate modifying one's bids in these, or similar fashions, with a part score?

Against weaker players than yourselves, the opposite is more likely to pay off. Traditionally, strong rubber bridge players deliberately sandbag with a part score, inviting the opponents to save against the game bid and then doubling for penalties. One or two such penalties easily replaces the (possibly) lost rubber bonus, and any others are bonus.
A side benefit is that aggressive slams are not bid, so any slams actually bid are high odds. This is also sound strategy with a partscore.
Against stronger players than yourselves, just bid your normal cards. Strong opponents will quickly note if you are stretching with a partscore, and get their doubling boots on to collect a pound of your flesh.
In the unusual circumstance that you are playing opponents exactly as strong as you, it probably doesn't matter as they will be making the same sorts of strategic mistakes that you are, and it will all be a wash.
If you want to improve as a bridge player, start counting the cards (more thoroughly, more smoothly, more naturally than you already are) instead of looking for silly bidding tricks. This will strengthen the game of both you and partner, without subjecting partner to possible ethical dilemmas about whether or not this is a circumstance in which the two of you have agreed to bid light, or heavy, or normal. It also reduces partner's memory load, which is always beneficial regardless of one's level.


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Are there times NOT to bid 1NT with 15 high card points and a balanced hand?
This refers to a strong (15-17) 1NT with hand shapes of 4-3-3-3, 4-4-3-2, or 5-3-3-2.
With "flat" hand like (s) Kxx (h) Kxx (d) KJx (c) KQxx, I would refrain from bidding 1NT, after deducting one point from my "bare" 15 for the 4-3-3-3 shape. (All the x's are 7 or lower; give me two or three tens or nines and I would probably open 1NT.) Instead, I would bid one club.
Change the hand slightly to (s) Kx (h) Kxx (d) KJxx (c) KQxx, and I'd probably bid 1 diamond since I'm 2-3 in the majors, even though my shape is technically 2-3-4-4. (But if the major and minor suits were switched, so I have two high card majors, I'd bid 1NT and hope to hear 2c (Stayman) or a transfer bid.)
With a 5-4-2-2 "semibalanced" hand, I wouldn't bid 1NT with 15-16, but might do so with 17-18, deducting a point or so for two doubletons.
Would most experts refrain from bidding 1NT with 15 high card points in the above situations, or similar ones that I haven't mentioned?

I can't speak for most experts, but I can speak for myself. I never downgrade a balanced 15-count. I occasionally upgrade a balanced 14-count, and I know several good players who do it more frequently (and announce "a good 14-17" when their partners open). Likewise, I never downgrade an 18-count into a 1NT opener, but occasionally upgrade a 17-count into a 1-level opening followed by 2NT rebid (almost always when holding a decent 5-card suit, more frequently when the suit is a major).
On the subject of 5332s, a national champion once told me that when you hold a 5-card major with 15 or 16 HCP, you should either almost always or almost never open 1NT. He was in the almost always camp; he would prefer to open the major if literally all of his high-card points were in two suits.
As to 5422 shapes, whether you should open 1NT depends on a couple of things. Most important is rebid problems. If you have 5 diamonds and 4 hearts (e.g. xx AQxx AKJxx Qx), you will have a rebid problem after partner responds 1S or 1NT. I don't think this hand is good enough to reverse, and rebidding 2D is terrible, so I would open 1NT. On the other hand, if your hand is AQxx xx Qx AKJxx, you have a good rebid after any of partner's likely responses, so there's no need to open 1NT. A difficult case is when you hold 5 clubs and 4 diamonds; if you play Crawling Stayman (i.e. that 1NT-2C-2D-2H shows that responder has a weak hand with length in both majors), you should avoid opening 1NT without at least three cards in at least one major.
Another consideration for 5422 hands is whether your values are in your long suits or your short suits. A hand like Kx Qxxxx Kxxx AK has values concentrated in the short suits; consider opening 1NT instead of 1H.

I think most experts would agree with this answer.

I can only speak for myself - but I agree also. ;-)

As my first bridge teacher told me "we look for excuses to bid 1NT, not for excuses not to bid 1NT."

@PieterGeerkens: I'm a bit confused by your agreement, because I believe that you were the person that taught me to subtract a point for the 4-3-3-3 distribution, plus the fact that there were no "intermediates" (T, 9, 8), when I specified that the x's were 7 or less.

@TomAu Hand evaluation is a funny thing. Rules of thumb are contextual. In this case, it is my opinion that subtracting a point for 4333 distribution is appropriate for responder deciding whether or not to invite, or whether or not to force to game, and it's appropriate for opener when deciding whether to make a game try, or whether to accept an invitation for responder. It's also useful for deciding whether to open a hand at all. But I don't think it's a useful rule of thumb for deciding which balanced opening sequence to make (1NT, 1 of a suit followed by 1 or 2NT, 2NT).

although a weak NT advocate (10-14 without a 5+ Major) I urge you to consider a 14+ - 17 or even 14+ - 18-.
 when the range for all minimum openers is identical, an opener that qualifies to open 1M & NT will never mislead partner in terms of shape & strength. further, that range would also apply to mini Roman, Flannery, gambling 3NT, & NAMYATS is used.   keng


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Has the value of a five-card suit in no trump contracts been demonstrated?
Going through old bridge books (by e.g., George Coffin), I was struck by the fact that some 3NT contracts made easily with "only" 24-25 and a good five card suit, while if both declarer and dummy had flat (4-4-3-2 or 4-3-3-3) distributions, a 3NT contract could be difficult even with 28-29. Intuitively, it seems logical that a fifth card in a good five card suit could be worth a king or even and ace, that is, the difference between 24-25 and 28-29. It almost seems like the "standard" 26-27 high card point (hcp) requirement is an averaging of these two polar cases.
Of course, there are five card suits of varying caliber. All other things being equal, a 5-3 fit is much better than a 5-2 fit (unless you have three or four of the top honors with the 5-2 fit). And a "5-3" fit of xxxxx opposite xxx isn't worth much, except as a stopper. But here, we're talking about a normal eight card suit situation with more than half the hcps between declarer and dummy. That is, six or seven hcps in the suit.
Has the advantage of a five card suit been demonstrated either empirically or by experts?
Empirically, are there databases of e.g. tournaments that show that more than 50 percent of 3NT contracts are made with, say, 24 hcps and good five card suits (or even random five card suits), while you need many more hcps to have a better than a 50-50 chance of succeeding if your longest suit is four cards in one hand?
For expert views, are there any experts who say, if you are responding to 1NT (15-17) with a hand that has nine hcps, and one five card suit of say, KQJxx feel free to jump to 3NT which partner is likely to make even with a minimum? Whereas you should hold back to 2NT even with ten hcp if your best suit is only KQJx? Alternatively, would such an expert advocating raising a response of 2NT to 3NT with say, 16 hcp and a suit like KQJxx, while passing 2NT with 17 hcp and KQJx as your best suit? (In these examples, your main suit has the same honors in each case, and differ only in length, by one "2.")

I will start by saying that a 26-27 hcp requirement for games is old-fashioned in the extreme. I most often see a recommendation of 25 hcp for 3NT or 4M games, and occasionally see that shaded to 24 hcp. Along those lines, I raise a 15-17 1NT to game with nearly any 9-count.
Probably more useful than upgrading 5332 hands is downgrading 4333 hands. Many players subtract 1 high-card point for 4333 shape. 4432 hands play much better than 4333 hands, and so don't deserve the same treatment.
With all that being said, high card points are a fairly crude tool for hand evaluation. Losing trick count can supplement HCP as an aid to hand evaluation, though it is much more useful when a good trump fit has been found than when responding to 1NT. However, I mention it as it helps validate your intuition that a fifth card in a suit is worth more than a third card in a suit, all else being equal.

I'd say 26-27 would do if the hand was 4-4-3-2, but you need 28-29 for 4-3-3-3, and can "make do" with 24-25 and 5-3-3-2, provided that the "5" is reasonably solid.

@TomAu You can say that if you like, but you will be missing a lot of good games.


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In Bridge, what are "proper" responses to a "strong" 2 club bid?
Bidding Standard American, and opening a "strong" two clubs (typically 22 HCPs and a six card suit), I like to hear responses of 2 diamonds (0-8 points, no more than game interest), or 2NT (9+ plus points, possible slam interest).
I don't want to hear other responses (2 hearts, 2 spades, 3 clubs, 3 diamonds) unless the responder has at least six of them headed by something like KQJ (or better). The reasons are because 1) I've "advertised" such a good 6 card suit myself, and 2) with 22 points, I don't want partner bidding "my" suit and exposing my hand as dummy. (It's unlikely that we'll both have the same 6 card suit, which is why I allow this exception.)
Am I wrong to ask my partners to limit their responses to 2 diamonds and 2NT? Or are there other viable responses to my 2 Club opening?

Many people play different system over 2C. What is "proper" is what you have agreed to play. If you are asking which is the "best" system to play over 2C, there is no objective answer to that.

Also, your description is wrong. You don't always have a 6 card suit for a 2C opener. So assuming that and forming a system around that seems pretty inefficient.

What do you play/recommend?

Just pick one of the standard ones which you are comfortable with and stick to it. As it is, getting a hand to open 2C is very rare, and spending too much effort on that seems pointless.

I've never heard of anyone requiring a 6 card suit for a "strong" 2C opening.

@KarlKnechtel:The BASIC requirement is at least 6 cards and 22 points (as I understand it). This can be modified to 5 cards and 25 HCPs, or 7 cards and 19 HCPs (trading potential "trumps" for HCPs at the ratio of 1 to 3).

@TomAu: Not sure where you are getting your information from. I would suggest your check your sources for credibility/staleness.

@TomAu: Experts here can explain sound bridge fundamentals to you, but we cannot make either you or your partner play them, If you insist on playing bad bridge, so be it; but stop complaining about the better players who condescend to play with you, and start learning from them.

@PieterGeerkens: I guess it's a case of the blind leading the blind. If I were satisfied these people knew what they were doing, I wouldn't have asked this. But one partner jumped to 4NT after hearing "two clubs." We got into a 6 spade contract that failed because she had only one opposite my six. She hadn't even waited to find out my suit before using Blackwood. Maybe what I asked is wrong theoretically, and maybe it is right for "our group." In case you've wondered, I've been a "big fish in a small pond."

@TomAu: Sounds like your whole group needs a lesson in hand captaincy; and in how to not be Hideous Hog. A key requirement for a 2C opening is that your hand be so easy to describe that you are immediately, and irrevocably, granting hand captaincy to your partner. If you and your partner understood this, there would be no need for her to rush to 4NT.

@TomAu: Which is not to mean that she cannot give you a choice of contracts, or of levels. But you both need to understand exactly how and when those sequences develop.

If that's the system you've agreed with partner - that the only valid responses to 2C are 2D or 2NT - then it's fair enough to raise an eyebrow if they start improvising.
Personally, and bear in mind that I don't play Standard American myself, but a pretty loose take on Acol: I don't understand why you would want to restrict responses so strictly.  Fair enough, you need to have a negative 2D bid, and to understand between you what that implies.  Beyond that, the more expressive you can make your system, the better.  What's the point of a 2NT "generic positive" bid if it just forces opener to ask more questions, at the next level of bidding, to determine the actual best contract to be in?
If my partner has enough points not to have to make a 2D bid, I'm delighted to hear about hearts or spades being his longest suit at the 2 level, even if that suit is only 5 cards or whatever.  Naturally, if partner wants to talk about a minor suit, at the 3 level, they'd better have more than a 5 card suit, to be on the safe side...

OK, then following your suggestion, ANY bid other than 2d shows 9+ points, right? Are you worried about partner bidding "your" suit and exposing your hand? Or is 31 HCPs and 11 trumps a "dream" situation, regardless?

@TomAu : why are you so worried about partner exposing your hand?  Your bidding already shows compelling strength, and one of your two hands will be shown regardless; what's the downside in ending up as dummy?

@StevenStadnicki it's usually considered that having the "stronger" hand as declarer makes the hand easier to play, which is why "transfer" bidding conventions exist. That said, if it's a laydown slam, it won't matter...

Oye vey.  It is too restrictive to expect lots of points and a 6 card suit.  You want to use 2C for most hands with either 22+ high card points or 9 offensive tricks (generally 1 short of game).  Two suited hands might be best handled with other systems.  Generally 2C if you don't want partner to PASS.
Responses:  I can think of at least five different response agreements:  [1] just waiting, always 2D waiting, [2] waiting unless you have 7+ and a five card suit to bid or 10+ for NT response, [3] 2D game forcing, with A or K or for some QQ, 2H is not GF, 2S is spades, 2NT is five card heart suit and some points/stoppers [4] steps - 2D = 0-3, 2H=4-6, 2S=7-8, etc. and [5] control showing.  Controls refers to bids that show Aces and Kings only.  There are many answer sequence agreements, but many use 2D has a king or does not, 2H either has 2 Kings or just 1 Ace, 2S is exactly 1 Ace and 1 King, 2NT is exactly 3 Kings, 3C is 4+ control points.  Ace=2 and King=1.  I have played them all.  I find # 4 and 5 more useful for slam bidding.

A good summary. With a pick up partner I would assume [2]. With my current regular partner we have [3] with detailed agreements about the next round or two to sort out the openers hand type (2H response and/or opener with 4441 are particular headaches in that approach). With my former regular partner we played [5], and for us a 2C categorically denied a balanced hand (we loaded Multi with those).

If you use the 2♥ double negative response, and then 2♦ can be game-forcing (2 queens or stronger). Most pairs agreeing on this employ 2♠ for positive spades and 2NT for positive hearts.
You can also reverse the 2♠ and 2NT above, making them reverse transfers.
You mean the auction 2♣-2♦;2NT-3♥/♦ can be positive 5-card ♠/♥? The tradeoff is that disastrous 4M+2 and 6M-1 are more likely to happen. :)

The most common agreement in the US is that 2D by responder covers almost all hands. At this point you know very little about opener's hand, so if you want to take up more bidding space than that you should be very descriptive. I play that bidding a suit shows two of the top three honors in that suit and nothing of value elsewhere. 2NT by responder has no meaning. It preempts your partner, and if opener is balanced you'd prefer that defenders not get the advantage of seeing the big hand. So 2D can cover a huge range of hands. That's OK, because opener's most likely rebid is 2NT (22-24 HCP balanced), over which you play the same system as you do responding to a 2NT opener (with required point counts adjusted, of course).
Edit: I didn't notice at first that (you say) 2C is typically 22+ HCP with a 6-card suit. This is certainly not current Standard American practice, which is to bid 2C on essentially any shape with 22+ HCP. The most common 2C opener is a balanced hand with 22-24 HCP.

I think I was using Goren, an older standard I learned in the 1960s. That's 22-24 points and a six card suit, OR 19-21 and a SEVEN card suit, OR 25+ and a five card suit, trading cards for points at a ratio of one to three.

I don't play Standard American, so this may be not the most valuable answer.  But I can't believe you've read it right if the only two worthwhle responses are 2D and 2NT. Even if you do decide that you are only interested in negative (8- HCP) or positive (9+), that would be an inefficient way of doing it; why not make the positve response 2H, to give you more space?  And no decent player would deliberately forego finding out partner's best suit, unless you have such a powerful hand that you only want to find out whether partner has one particular card before deciding which slam.  (There are bids for this last situation, but I don't propose to discuss them; unless you are already too good to be taking advice from this site, gadgets for situations that rare can only cause trouble).

Let's say my hand is (s) AKJxxx (h)AQx (d) Ax (c) Ax (basically a "minimum" for 2c. Even if my partner has Kxxxx of hearts, we're probably better off in my suit than his, unless he DOESN'T have xx or better in spades. And if his Kxxxx or even Kxxxxx is opposite my two weaker suits, we're better off in two spades.

@Tom: No, 2S is a rotten contract to finish in.  Is 4S better than 3NT?  What about a possible slam?  Finding the right suit is only half the battle, and that's why you need more information before you go past the 3NT level.

Actually the other way around - 2D as waiting and 2H as the double negative - saves an additional step on the slam-investigation hands where it is most valuable. See above answer by jdh8.

My duplicate bridge teacher suggested a 2D response as either negative or "waiting" in order to see what suit(s) the opener rebid.  That might keep the responder from winning the bid and exposing the stronger hand as dummy.

That's the way I feel. (Unless responder has something very strong or unusual to say.) Others disagree with me.

Echoing the above with regard to not needing a 6-card suit.  Wrongsiding a NT contract is usually worse than wrongsiding a hearts contract, so I think it's best to avoid responder making a 2NT response unless you want to get fancy.
If you want to keep things simple but effective, popular in clubs in North America is to have 2D be "semipositive", meaning a king or two queens or better.  2H is a bust -- may not provide even a single trick.  Responder should bid their own suit at the 3 level only when it's a strong candidate for the right strain opposite Hx.  Opener's most common hand type is the 22-24 balanced, and so you can use your 2NT system for responder to express their suit.  And if opener isn't 22-24 balanced, they either have your suit too or they have their own suits to bid with limited support for yours.
So something that fits well with 2D = semipositive plus 2H = bust is to have 2N be unused, and 2S through 3H being transfers to the next suit, with KQxxxx or better.  If you have a five-card major you can bid it after opener's suit rebid, or transfer to it over their 2N rebid.


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In Bridge, Is "ruffing" a good enough reason to postpone drawing trumps?
Most bridge teachers (and books) teach players to draw trumps at the first possible opportunity. The reason is that you don't want your opponents to take tricks with low trumps. (If they have the A, or Kx or Qxx "offside" your ace, their high trumps will take tricks.)
One exception is a cross-ruff. Then you want to take your top card winners in side suits, before cross-ruffing, so that your opponents can't discard those suits and later ruff your high cards with their remaining trumps.
Another example that was given in a bridge write-up was when you want to ruff low cards in one hand with trumps in the other hand (after it runs out of the suit). If you do this, you leave opposing trumps outstanding. On the other hand, is it true that the act of your ruffing (thus playing trumps from one hand), "qualifies" as a trump play so that you don't leave yourself unprotected? Or put another way, does it often make sense to ruff before drawing trumps?

I don't really get your question: I can't seem to make sense of the second last sentence. Can you please elaborate? Also, what exactly do you mean by "often" (in the last sentence).

@Aryabhata: Today, I might word the question, "if drawing trumps is a good thing, is ruffing an adequate substitute." And my answer was yes.

There isn't really a single answer to this; when to draw trumps and when not to is probably the area where most judgement is called for, as opposed to applying rules.  You have to balance the probable gain from ruffing early against the possible loss if the opponents ruff your winners later (or, of course, over-ruff).  I realize this isn't necessarily helpful, so here's a list (non-exhaustive) of factors that weigh against taking out trumps:
You can use a trump in the short hand (ie one that would be swallowed if you take out trumps).
You have enough high trumps to ruff high without compromising control.
You have a long suit that can be established by a ruff or two (in which case of course you must take out trumps after the ruff).
After one or two rounds, the opponents have the high trumps: they're going to win anyway, no sense in letting them take your trumps as well.
You can see that normal play, such as taking out trumps, will leave you one trick short, so a gamble will give better returns than normal in the score.

A very good summary of multiple scenarios.

Like most aphorisms, this has a grain of truth, but also needs to be taken with a grain of salt.
Trump is the most powerful suit on the board. That's a good reason for PLAYING them early, but not necessarily drawing them early.
Suppose you have a singleton in a side suit in dummy, and Axx in your hand. You'll want to take the ace, ruff an x, get back to your hand (possibly with a trump), and ruff the other x. With only four in the suit, your opponents will have nine. And if no one bid the suit at the three level, you can safely assume that they are distributed 6-3 or 5-4. If you have three trumps in dummy, you can't afford to draw more than one (possibly to get back to your hand), because you'd be drawing YOUR OWN trumps.
In other cases, you'll be ruffing longer suits, but may have high trumps in dummy to overruff anything your opponents can play. And if an opponent's trump holding were something like K9, s/he might not want to trump and "unguard" the king against your ace.
So I would re-word the advice by saying PLAY trump early, rather than DRAW trump early. Ruffing counts.


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When and how do you use suit preference signals in bridge?
One example is when you (West) lead a singleton against a trump contract, hopefully to your partner's ace, s/he takes it, and then East leads back a spot card in the suit for you to ruff.
Besides the led suit and the trump suit, there are two side suits, so partner will lead a high spot for a return lead the higher side suit, and a low spot spot for the lower side suit?
In what other situations would people would use a suit preference signal. I once read a Marty Bergen book that said the suit preference signals are used mainly by Easts. Is that true?

Don't sit North-South then, as you will be defending half the time and unable to use one of the defence's key weapons. Of course it is not true - Bergen is making a joke on the fact that play problems are usually set for publication with declarer in the South seat.

@PieterGeerkens: Victor Mollo wrote a book entitled something like "Defense, Where the Points are Won." I've taken that message to heart.

To explain Bergen's comment slightly: the only trick where the defenders are not symmetrical is the first. As suit-preference opening leads are very rare, and East may be in a position to make a suit-preference signal once Dummy comes down, it is very slightly true due to this one asymmetry.

Stop memorizing the aphorisms, and learn when they do, and more meaningfully don't, apply.

Then preface your question with "How does a novice or early-intermediate player learn when to make (and read) a suit-preference signal?"

@PieterGeerkens: You hit the nail on the head when you said, "the only trick where the defenders are not symmetrical is the first." Given an East-West ratio of 7- to 6- (out of 13 cards), the difference would be "slight." But my guess is that it's more like 3- to -2 or even 2- to -1 (based on suits). Which might be why Bergen implied "mainly." As for the "level," the quality of the question (or lack thereof, as the case may be) will speak for itself.

One suit-preference situation that frequently comes up when you lead an A or K (whichever you have agreed to lead from AKx(xx)) against a suit contract, and dummy comes down with a stiff in that suit. Most partnerships play that partner's spot in this situation is suit-preference for the other side suits.
As you mentioned, when you expect partner to ruff your lead, it should be suit preference.
When you have solid honor sequences in a suit, the order in which you cash the honors should give suit preference.
Many partnerships agree to play "trump suit preference" signals; in this agreement, when you follow to the trump suit, you play your spots in suit preference order (e.g. a low spot first to show preference for the lower side suit). This agreement arises out of the sense that giving count in the trump suit often helps declarer more than partner.
Some partnerships play suit preference signals at No Trump whenever declarer appears to be cashing out a long suit, in order to help partner choose discards.
Some partnerships give suit preference much more often. In the Granovetters' obvious-shift agreement (described in the book "A Switch in Time"), the signal to the first trick is a modified attitude signal (encourage when you like the opening lead or can't stand a switch to the "obvious shift" suit, which is determined by looking at dummy and applying certain rules), and all remaining signals are suit preference, with specific exceptions carved out for count signals. They argue that this agreement helps them find the right defense more often than more standard agreements.

@I agree with you that suit preference deserves a higher priority than under "standard" agreements. IMHO, "attitude" and "count" should be somewhat obvious from the context. And even if they aren't they might be less valuable.

The priority of defensive signals is Attitude, then Count, then Suit Preference. Alphabetical order for those of us who speak English. The key on defence is that every card played should be one of those signals when possible, which usually means whenever a choice of equivalent, or apparently equivalent, cards is available. Therefore in all cases below, interpret signal as played-card.
If a signal can sensibly be interpreted as Attitude, treat it as an Attitude signal; if a signal cannot sensibly be interpreted as an Attitude signal, then interpret it as a Count signal; when it cannot sensibly be interpreted as either an Attitude signal or as a Count signal, then interpret it as a Suit-Preference signal.
Some special cases apply when it is almost certainly common knowledge that one defender is not interested in one or two of those signals:

Defenders do not give attitude in the trump suit, so the first signal is count and the second is suit-preference.
When leading for a likely ruff by partner, partner needs to receive suit-preference as a priority, so this signal is given each time rather than either of the others.

As I now understand it, a suit preference signal is made by the giver of a desired lead.
Example: You are West, defending a major suit trump contract. East has doubled to ask you to lead dummy's first bid suit (a response). So you lead the suit, and dummy comes down KJ93 in the suit. Declarer plays the king from dummy, and East the ace. Then what does he lead back?
You, West, are giving East a desired lead (into his tenace), so the suit preference signal should have come from you. Your opening lead should have been low if your entry is in the lower of the two side suits, and high if your entry is in higher of them. East leads a card to your entry so you lead another card into East's remaining QT, and your side takes three tricks in "dummy's" suit. Your entry trick defeats the contract.
In the example I gave in the question, East is giving, and West is receiving ruffs (the desired leads) so East should give a suit preference signal to signal his entry.