Foster Echo: Bridge Bidding Convention

Foster Echo

You lead your 4th best against a contract of 3NT and an honor wins on board. Also you lead coded 10’s and 9’s and an honor wins on the board. What is partner's signal? Count or attitude? You can argue the merits of showing attitude and you can make a case that the signal should show count. In some cases partner can block your suit by playing the wrong card under the under the honor at trick one. Anyway a convention called "Foster Echoes" was invented to help in these situations (only). Foster Echoes are a combination attitude, count and unblocking play all rolled into one concept. The one concept is that Foster Echoes demand your 2nd highest card be thrown under the honor won on the board. If the card you play is the 2nd highest, partner can quite often "fill in the blanks" and figure out the denomination of your highest card. If you have a doubleton, by playing your deuce or similar low card it is obviously a doubleton since that’s your 2nd highest.

The following from the Internet on Foster Echoes

Against a NT contract, when 3rd hand cannot win the trick, 3rd hand is expected to play the 2nd highest card. This informs partner that he has a higher card which is very useful information. With 4+ cards, 3rd hand plays second, third and finally lowest card. With three cards, 3rd hand plays second, and then lowest card. For example:

Partner leads the 4 of spades (4th best leads) against 3NT, dummy has K72 of spades, declarer calls for the King which holds. Your spade holding is:

J95 - play the 9 and next play the 5
T65 - play the 6 and next play the 5
9853 - play the 8, then the 5 and finally the 3
Q9653 - play the 9, then the 6 and finally the 3
T4 - play the 4 and then the Ten

The Foster Echo thus shows count while retaining the highest card (if needed later) and to tell partner you have that card.

Of course, the downside of playing Foster Echo is that the second highest card may be an important spot card.

Here are a number of examples from play. I lead my 4th best club from Q10xxx and the singleton K won on the board. I can count 8 tricks for declarer and I have a number of entries. The danger is leading a club into declarers AJ of clubs which gives away the 9th trick. Tom plays the club 9 under the King. If that is his 2nd highest club I know he has the jack! Say you lead the 10 playing coded 10’s and 9’s against 3NT from AJ108x and the King wins on the board. Tom again plays the 9 as his second highest. You get in again and you have no worries about setting up the queen as partner must hold that card.

You lead 4th best heart against 3NT from K10852 and the heart queen wins on the board. Partner plays the 3 as his 2nd highest. You now know partner has a doubleton and declarer can be has heart rich as AJ9x. You lead from sequences QJ10xx or J109xx and an honor wins on board. Quite often partners 2nd highest card will show the outstanding honors at trick one which can be very helpful. You have K10854 and you lead 4th best and the Ace wins on board and partner produces the jack as his 2nd highest. You know he has the queen and the necessary unblocking is taking place.

You lead 4th best from J8643 and the Kx wins on board. Partner playing the 10 from Q1092 which is necessary to unblock the suit.You get in and continue your suit and partner plays the 9. You get in again and the suit is unblocked to run them. A nice side effect of Foster Echoes is it forces you to unblock properly!

The convention was invented for NT contracts but I see no reason why it cannot be used in a suit contract. You lead the 9 from Q109xx and the Ace wins on the board. Partner plays the 8 as her 2nd highest. You now know that she has the Jack or King. If you are going to take chances and lead from such holdings in suit contracts than why not use Foster Echoes?

Two signaling understandings came up in Montreal which are not related to Foster Echoes but interesting to discuss. I bid a suit so Tom dutifully leads the deuce from 942. It is very important that I know that he has 3 as opposed to 4 as I get end played if we do not get it right. I won the queen the 1st trick and I lead the Ace the next trick. Tom plays the 9 instead of the 4 to indicate that he has 3. We now beat the hand. If Tom had 4 he would just go up the line when following suit.

Another hand. The opponents were in 4

	Qxx
	Qxx
	xx
	J10xxx
xx		?
AKxx		?
KJxx		?
xxx		?
	AKxxxx
	xx
	xx
	AKQ

I led the heart king which in our system demands count. Tom played the deuce showing an even number with our methods. How do you prevent them from making an impossible game? You can do nothing about the queen of hearts on the board so why not cash the other heart honor for suit preference purposes. Tom throws the heart 10 under it so you switch to a diamond (higher ranking) of the two minors and beat the hand.