Scanian Signals

Scanian signals are situational upside-down attitude signals by third hand. They may be used when following suit, or when making the first discard in a suit. Scanian signals are used when one of these conditions exist:

• Dummy contains a "finessable" honor card.

  "The Encyclopedia of Bridge" provides this example layout:

  		Dummy
  		J742
  West				East
  AKT5				Q83
  		Declarer
  		96

  
  West leads the A and East encourages with the 3. Now West can continue with the T to smother declarer's 9 and finesse dummy's J.

  
  

• Third hand has 4+ cards in the suit.

  This may be known either by the bidding or when counting the distribution during the play of the hand. Again from the Encyclopedia of Bridge:

  		Dummy
  		AJ
  West				East
  863				KQT4
  		Declarer
  		9752

  
  West leads a club and declarer puts up dummy's ace. East can signal with the 4, thus preserving the T as a potential fourth-round winner.

In all other situations, standard attitude signals are used.

Scanian signals were created by Swedish expert Anders Wirgren. His writeup first appeared in the July 1991 edition of Bridge World magazine.