Can you feed false information?

Charles Caleb Colton was an eccentric English cleric and author who died in 1832.

He wrote, “Falsehood is never so successful as when she baits her hook with truth, and no opinions so fatally mislead us, as those that are not wholly wrong; as no watches so effectually deceive the wearer as those that are sometimes right.”

It is particularly pleasing for a defender to find a play that deceives declarer about the lie of the cards and persuades him to go down in a contract he could have made.

If you wish to test yourself, look only at the North and South hands. West, after opening with a weak two-bid in diamonds, leads the heart six against four spades. East wins with his ace and returns the suit, West following with the two

— whew! But how would you continue?

South wondered if he was going to miss a slam by jumping to game, but he knew that he could not find out if North held two of the three key cards: the spade king, heart ace and diamond ace.

When an opponent preempts, then leads a side suit, that is typically a singleton. So South was surprised when West did not ruff at trick two. Now declarer drew the conclusion that West had at least two trumps. So declarer cashed the spade ace and played another trump. Down one and a cold zero in an 11-table duplicate. To make the contract, South had to play a spade to the jack at trick three — tough to find.

One other West led the heart six, but East shifted to his diamond, and West pushed through a club. After ruffing, South played a spade to the jack.