PHILIP ALDER

Mark Twain once wrote, “Honesty is the best policy — when there is money in it.” However, when playing bridge for money, honesty is often an expensive policy.

If you are defending and apparently have no chance to defeat the contract, try to bamboozle the declarer into thinking the cards lie differently. Perhaps you will drop an honor when you still hold at least one lower card in the suit.

On today’s deal, North’s four-diamond response was a splinter bid, showing a high-card raise to four spades with at most one diamond; South controlbid his heart ace; North employed Roman Key

Card Blackwood; South showed (zero or) three key cards; and North, who knew an ace or the spade king was missing, settled for six spades.

West led the club eight: king, four, nine. Declarer, seeing that the only danger was a 3-0 trump split, called for dummy’s spade four. After East followed with the three, South played his two. When he won the trick, he tied a world record. This safety play guaranteed only one loser in the suit, necessary as East had all three trumps.

Now go back to trick one. Suppose under the club king, East smoothly drops the queen. What will declarer make of that? Obviously, he will think it is a singleton. Then the trump safety play loses its appeal. If declarer ducks a trump, West may win with a singleton honor and give his partner a club ruff to defeat the slam. Probably, South will continue with a spade to the ace and lose two trump tricks to East.

If you can’t defeat a contract by hook, try crook.