TURN THE SIGN TO YOUR BENEFIT

I t is a favorite plot ploy. The villain is being chased by the hero, and he approaches a “road closed” sign, or something similar. He hops out of his car and moves the sign in front of the open road. He then drives off, confident that the good guy will take the wrong turn.

Sometimes a bridge player can accomplish the same sort of effect. A welltimed false-card may deflect an opponent from the winning line.

Today’s deal was the 24th and last in a rubberbridge match. NorthSouth trailed by 1300 points, hence North’s immediate jump to six clubs.

West led the heart 10. Declarer saw that he had two potential losers in diamonds and one in spades, but he had some finesses he could take, and a discard was available on the fourth heart.

After winning the first trick on the board, declarer drew two rounds of trumps ending in hand. Then he led a diamond to dummy's nine.

If East had won with the 10, South would have been forced to make his slam. He would have discarded the diamond jack on the fourth heart and fallen back on the spade finesse, which, as you can see, was working.

However, East did well, winning with the diamond king, not the 10. He could see that the falsecard couldn’t cost and might gain. He then exited with his remaining heart.

Now declarer misguessed. He tried a second diamond finesse and finished down one.

Have you noticed that South could have done better? If he had cashed two more rounds of hearts before finessing the diamond nine, East would have been unable to mask the position.