Void Signal

To show a void in a suit the taker plays a card in three suits and then returns to his first suit. The sequence $\spadesuit$A $\heartsuit$A $\diamondsuit$10 $\spadesuit$J shows that the taker is out of clubs because he has led the other three suits and then returned to his first suit, spades.

This tells the giver that she should hold onto her clubs because they will never be a threat. This can guide the giver through a difficult decision about what to pitch.

Imagine that the complete hand was:

	taker		giver
$\spadesuit$	A J 10 3		Q
$\heartsuit$	A 6 3		10 9 2
$\diamondsuit$	10 6 4		J 9 8 7
$\clubsuit$	-		A 10
	fig. 1

If the taker just led $\spadesuit$A, $\spadesuit$J the giver would probably throw away her $\clubsuit$A followed by the $\clubsuit$10 on the next spade. This would doom the hand. In order to make this hand the giver must hold on to her clubs.

By playing $\spadesuit$A, $\heartsuit$A, $\diamondsuit$10, $\spadesuit$J taker has showed that he has no clubs. Giver knows that any club pitches would be wasted, so wisely pitches hearts (the short suit) instead.

This void signal is fairly rare. Not just because voids are rare (they actually occur in 16% of all Gorilla hands) but because a lot of the time it is too risky to show the void.

If the taker had

$\spadesuit$	A J 8 5 4
$\heartsuit$	A Q 8
$\diamondsuit$	8 2
$\clubsuit$	-
	fig. 2

then the void signal would be too dangerous because of the $\diamondsuit$8. This hand is too strong to risk leading a card as low as the $\diamondsuit$8. A much better alternative here is to rely on suit shift signals (see section 3.1.7).