PAINT THE PICTURE IN MISLEADING CARDS

Herbert Spencer, an Englishman who coined “survival of the fittest,” said, “How often misused words generate misleading thoughts.”

At the bridge table, success at the top level sometimes requires playing cards that generate incorrect thoughts in the minds of the opponents.

In this deal, the defenders were Brad Moss (East) and Joe Grue. East could not open with a weak twobid in diamonds. North’s one-heart response showed spades. His second-round jump to four hearts asked his partner to choose between four spades and four hearts.

West led the diamond six, third-highest from an even number or lowest from an odd number. The declarer ruffed in the dummy, played a spade to his ace and returned a spade to dummy’s king, relieved to see the 2-2 split. Now South had two chances: finding East with the club ace or playing hearts for only one loser.

In hearts, declarer could have won if East had honor-10-doubleton or 10doubleton, or either opponent had king-queen-doubleton and South guessed correctly.

At trick four, declarer led a low heart from the board, and East sowed a misleading seed by playing his 10. West did his part by taking South's jack with his king, then leading a second diamond.

Declarer ruffed in the dummy and tried a club to his king, but West won with his ace and played a third diamond.

Now South had to guess hearts. It really looked as though East had started with queen-10-doubleton, so declarer cashed the heart ace and went down one. Copyright United Feature Syndicate (Asia Features)