DECEIT IS DELICIOUS FOR DECLARER

Ceslaw Milosz, a Lithuanian-born Polish poet, wrote, "Grow your tree of falsehood from a small grain of truth."

If a defender makes a deceptive play, he runs the risk of misleading both his partner and declarer. The deceiver must be confident that partner isn't going to misdefend later.

Declarer has no such worries. He can mislead only the opponents. However, falsecarding is a complex subject.

This deal features one that is a favorite to bear fruit. How should South play in three no-trump after West leads his fourthhighest spade and East puts up the jack?

Declarer must count his top tricks first. There are seven: two spades (given the lead), one diamond and four clubs. If the diamond finesse is working, there will be overtricks available. But if it loses, maybe West will shift to a heart, which would surely be fatal to the contract. How can South dissuade West from switching majors?

The answer is to win the first trick with the spade ace! Cross to dummy with a club and take the diamond finesse. When it loses to West's king, surely he will continue with a low spade, expecting his partner to win the trick with the queen. When declarer suddenly produces that card out of his back pocket, he can enjoy the shocked expression on West's face!

erhaps West should see through South's subterfuge because if he had only, say, ace-third of spades, he probably would have made a holdup play at trick one (but perhaps not with A-x of spades). However, in the heat of battle, West is unlikely to find the deadly defense.