ACES ON BRIDGE

This week’s themed deals focus on deceptive declarer play. Although declarer does not have a monopoly on misleading his opponents, he does have the advantage of never catching his partner in the toils.

In certain situations, when your right-hand opponent leads a high intermediate, denoting nothing in the suit, around to dummy’s weakness, declarer can mislead his left-hand opponent by contributing an honor, a card he is known to hold, suggesting shortness in the suit. This may encourage a helpful continuation when, in fact, declarer has concealed his small cards. In this way, declarer or dummy can score an unexpected trick with a spot-card.

On this hand, a simple auction sees South declare the no-trump game on the lead of the spade jack, which denies a higher honor, to the ace from East. East shifts to the heart eight, and South must play the jack, which gives West a real problem: It may be right to clear the hearts if South is 3=2=4=4. That would give him the possibility of nine tricks on passive defense via two spades, a heart, three diamonds and three clubs. Then, only a lowheart continuation sets the game.

As it is, with declarer having only eight tricks, a heart return would end up looking silly. Of course, if declarer had followed with the heart six at trick two, West would also learn that he has the jack, after East’s shift to the heart eight, and would have little alternative to the winning passive defense.