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Life’s an Illusion…

You have, I am sure, been in the situation where you know that one’s opponents are about to get a ruff. So many otherwise excellent contracts fail because one’s opponents score one or more ruffs.

Often, you are as declarer helpless. Your only role is remembering you have to follow suit. An extra trick or two conceded for a revoke does not help your cause!

Sometimes, you can put a defender off the scent, or try to. The normal situation is where say your left-hand opponent leads say the ace of suit either they or no-one has bid. Dummy has a holding like QT32 and you J74 and it looks very much like three rounds of the suit will produce a ruff for the defence. Try the effect of playing the jack under the ace and see what happens. At the very least, there will be a break in tempo while the player on lead takes stock. He may well have received a count card (say showing an even number) from his partner. Yet, your card throws into doubt whether their partner has two or four cards in the suit. Cashing the king could be disastrous for the defence.

Your ploy may not work…but you have tried to avoid what otherwise would probably have come, a ruff. Experience shows that this kind of play works more often than it should….

……which brings us to yesterday’s hand:

 

You have already done really well in stealing this board in your 11- card diamond fit. The opponents must surely be cold for a vulnerable game and maybe even a slam in either or both black suits. You seem to have only two losers, A and a spade and are heading for a great score. Could anything go wrong and if so, what can you do about it?

The most likely answer is a heart ruff. You do not know for sure though you do know there is freakish distribution around the table. Look at your own hand!

You are unlikely to be able to discard your spade on the fourth round of hearts even if they broke 3-3 or 4-2. So, tell the world you do not have the Q. Play the J at trick one. Try to convince East that their partner led from Qxx. They may well switch and if they do not, then you have to say “well defended”.

These were the four hands:

 

If East believes you, you will make 11 tricks. If not or had you just played low from both hands at trick 1, you are likely to suffer two ruffs and concede 300…still a great score but not as good as adding 550 to the wonderful 1460 your teammates picked up from bidding 6 and even scoring an overtrick.

The other approach is to throw the queen under East’s ace. This could work against a pair who lead 3rds and 5ths, convincing East that the lead was from 973. However, where a pair lead 2nds and 4ths, the lead of the 3 would be most suspicious if the queen was in the South hand.

 

So, you have a choice of false cards. It would be nice to know your opponents’ leading style before you chose which false card you would play. Whatever you try would be better than playing a low heart from both hands and hoping East does not remember the old adage about returning partner’s lead. East needs to switch…for your sake!

Pre-empts do work. Neither East nor West did anything really wrong in defending 5x. It would have been a big view for East to have bid 6 to play in a major suit…or of choosing one of their major suits at the 5 level with varying degrees of success. You had a chance for this pre-empt to be even more successful. Where you can, put the opposition off the scent. Such ploys do work as well, quite regularly!

So, for Sunday…

 

You have reached a reasonable looking 4 contract and receive the 8 lead from West. You are playing Pairs. Plan the play including, of course, trick 1.

See you tomorrow…

 

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