Editing Signal (bridge) (section)

==Discarding agreements==
Some partnerships agree in advance to assign special meaning to the first {{gcb|discard}}.

===Lavinthal (McKenney)===
With this agreement, the first discard is suit preference. One does not like the led suit and does not want the suit discarded. One's suit preference signal tells one's partner which of the two remaining suits one prefers: a high card for the higher ranking of the remaining suits and a low card for the lower ranking. This treatment is known as Lavinthal in the United States, or McKenney in the UK. The potential disadvantage of this method is that one always have to give preference for one suit or other when one may not want any switch in particular. This can be overcome at times by signalling for an "impossible" switch, such as a suit in which the dummy has a very strong holding such as AKQ.

There is another slightly different Lavinthal used by ''SAYC OKBridge Style Simplified'': discarding a low card of either remaining suit (excluding trumps and the suit one does not have) asks for the lower suit. For example, if hearts are trumps and one is discarding on clubs, then a low spade ''or'' diamond asks for a diamond. Discarding a high card of either remaining suit asks for the higher suit.

===Revolving discard===
As with Lavinthal, one has the possibility to request suit preference in two ways. A low discard indicates interest in the suit directly below (a low club signaling spades); a high discard signals preference for the suit directly above (a high spade signaling clubs). The lead suit is skipped in reading the signal. This is considered by many to be easier to remember than Lavinthal.

===Odd–even (Roman)===
With this agreement, the first discard shows the following: if it is an odd spot card (three, five, seven or nine) it is encouraging in that suit; if it is a low even spot card (deuce or four), it shows preference for the lower ranking suit of the other two suits; if it is a high even spot card (six or eight), it shows preference for the higher ranking suit. The even card often has a dual function: aside from indicating suit preference, it is also a negative indication for the suit being used for the even card. A high odd card followed by a low odd card may show both preference and count (odd or even number of cards, depending on partnership agreement).

===Surrogate===
A surrogate suit is one played by the declarer in which a defender does not need to signal his attitude or count nor use to give a preference signal; usually the trump suit is a good surrogate suit if a trump echo is not needed.<ref>{{cite book
  |last1 = Kantar
  |first1 = Nicu 
  |last2 = Dimitrescu
  |first2 = Dan
  |title = Bridge Classic and Modern Conventions, Vol. IV
  |page = 1926
  |year = 2003
  |isbn = 91-631-1099-7}}</ref> The suit in which the count will be given is called the target suit.