Partner Passes in Round One
The same pass means two different things, depending on where you are sitting.
- You are the dealer. Ordering up would have handed the up-card to your own side, so the call was there for the taking. Passing it up is real evidence: partner has close to nothing in that suit.
- You are on the dealer's left. Partner then sits on the dealer's right, where a call would have given a trump to an opponent. That is a real cost, so the pass proves much less. Partner can hold a bower and a second trump here and still be right to pass.
Either way the pass rules out the big hands: nobody sits on both bowers in the up-card's suit, and almost nobody passes the right bower with length and an ace outside. Past that it says nothing about the other three suits, which is why partner can pass in round one and name a suit confidently in round two.
Partner Orders Up
When your partner orders up, they are committing your side to three tricks and expecting to take most of them, because you have shown nothing yet. Read it as two or more trump with a bower, or a bower and a trump alongside an ace in another suit.
Your job is to back the call, and you back it by leading trump when the lead reaches you. That pulls a trump from each opponent who has one while partner keeps theirs. Leading something else to protect your own high cards leaves the opponents holding trump, and that is how they steal a trick later.
The reading gets stronger the worse the up-card was. Ordering up a 9 or 10 hands the dealer a free trump for nothing, so nobody does it without a bower and real length behind it. Back that call hard.
Partner Picks Up as Dealer
This is the bid players overrate most. A dealer taking the up-card without being asked is trading their worst card for it and losing nothing, which makes it the cheapest call at the table, and a call that costs nothing promises nothing.
Credit partner with the up-card itself, which you can see, and one trump trick. Do not plan the hand around them taking three. If the up-card was an ace or a bower the call is better than that, but the strength you can actually count is the card lying face up in front of you.
You also will not be leading. Partner dealing puts you in second seat, and the opening lead always comes from the dealer's left, which is an opponent.
Partner Passes Again in Round Two
A partner who passes in both rounds has no callable suit anywhere. Expect one trick from them and do not build a plan that needs two. The second pass is also specific about the same-color suit, because that is the call partner had the best reason to make: passing it says they could not find a holding there even with the convention in their favor.
Partner Calls in Round Two
Round two opens the three suits the turned-down up-card did not bar, and which one partner picks tells you more than the fact that they called.
Same color as the up-card is going next, and the usual reading of it is backwards. It is tempting to assume partner holds the left bower, since the left bower of the next suit is the Jack of the suit just rejected. The convention runs the other way: anybody holding that Jack would have ordered the up-card up, so the turn-down is evidence it is buried rather than held. Calling next is attractive precisely because one of the two top trump is probably out of play, which means partner needed less to call it. Expect a solid hand, not a huge one, and do not count on the left bower falling to your side.
The other color is the stronger call, because no convention is helping. Partner named it on their own cards alone, so read it as real trump strength: a bower with length, or a bower and an ace outside.
Either way partner has committed your side to three tricks, so lead trump when you get in and hold your off-suit aces for the tricks partner cannot reach.
Reading Partner During Play
The bidding stops but the information does not. A partner who discards an ace, holding nothing in the suit led, has told you that ace was stranded with no path to a trick, so cross that suit off. A partner who trumps in on a trick you were already winning either misread it or holds enough trump that spending one costs nothing; assume the second and turn your attention to the suits outside trump. A partner following low twice running is short of high cards in those suits, and nothing subtle is being said. Do not lead them a suit they have already told you they cannot win in.
What the Bid Does Not Tell You
A bid shifts the odds; it does not settle anything. Partner can be calling thin to keep the opposition off a suit, can be misreading their own cards, or can simply play by different habits than you do. A first-round call from first seat should be solid, since they committed before anybody spoke, while the same call from third seat can be lighter, because two passes have already told them something. Not every partner makes that adjustment, and you find out by watching.
Use the read to break ties, not to plan the whole hand. Partner ordering up makes three tricks likelier. It does not make them yours.
See Also
How to call trump covers the bidding decisions partner is making, and how to play defense covers the play side of the same coordination.