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Subterfuge.

Is all not what it seems? What is going on during the play of the hand? Skulduggery at the bridge table?

 

 

 

 

West leads 4 (Leads 4^th highest, MUD) and you win with your ace, with South playing K. You switch to J with South playing 7 and West 9, low encouraging and dummy’s ace taking the trick.

10 wins the next trick and then a heart is played to your ace. What now?

Well, with a threatening looking diamond suit in dummy and the spade suit a no-goer, it looked like the only place for the defence to take another trick, apart from possibly the A was in clubs. So, despite West’s somewhat high club when the jack had been played, East continued with another club, 10 to be followed by a third club, and the defence, as you would say, was over.

Declarer’s hand was not what East had imagined.

 

South had seen the writing on the wall at trick1 as he knew his opponents were playing 5-card majors. Had he followed low, he would suffer a couple of ruffs even if he could quickly discard his club loser on the run of the diamonds (he could not). So, the K put a stop to East playing any more spades either immediately or when in with the A.

Suicide…certainly but one down or two down did not matter a great deal. Could East have been suspicious? We said East-West were leading 4^th highest or MUD (“middle up down") leads. If the K was a true card, then that left West with 1064. So, what would you lead from that holding in partner’s suit? Does the 10 constitute an honour or would you lead 6, the middle card? I tend to believe the latter. However, not unreasonably, East would have taken the K at face value without looking too closely at the lead.

Surely the 9 was not West’s lowest (KQ9 maybe?) but East was taken in by the clever drop of the honour. East had one more chance when 10 won the second trick with West following low. A third round of clubs seemed obvious despite West's strange discouraging signal. Was it now just too hard to avoid playing the third round of clubs, playing declarer for one more small club?

All conjecture but give South full credit for his unusual false-card which was hard for East to see through. A game made not by East’s defence (though he just might have come out with the real answer eventually) but by South’s clever subterfuge.

Skulduggery, indeed!

Jan’s Day. Well or “not well”!

 

Have you noticed there is something wrong with this contract? That’s right. You are missing both black aces! No need to show the bidding. It was not good!

West leads 2 with J winning the first trick. A club to the king wins and is followed by a club to the jack, both opponents following but no ace appearing. What now?

Richard Solomon

 

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