Aces on Bridge

In the 1998 Cap Gemini World Pairs Invitational, today’s slam hand struck a chord with me. In Victor Mollo’s Bridge Menagerie, Themistocles Papadopoulos was reputed to be the only man capable of falsecarding with a singleton. This deal’s declarers had to decide if their defenders were capable of precisely such a feat!

Of the eight tables playing in this event, seven declarers managed to reach six hearts. Slam is excellent — it can basically be claimed if trumps split. When declarer laid down a top heart from the South hand, the nine appeared from West. Now the question was whether this was a singleton or the “standard” expert false-card from an original holding of jack-nine-fourth, to persuade declarer that this was a singleton.

The problem here is that if you make the wrong guess and play the defender to have a singleton when he has four, that player will be able to gloat over you for the rest of his life. This was a good deal for the Berkowitz family, since David Berkowitz’s partner, Larry Cohen (playing against one of the very strongest pairs in the event), and Lisa Berkowitz (competing against the other female pair in the room) were the only declarers to succeed. They were prepared to pay off to this apparent “brilliancy,” by continuing with a second top trump from dummy and so made their slam.

The rest of the field played for their opponents to be superstars by leading a small heart to the queen, and all went down.