Contract Bridge

Sylvia’s extraordinary

exploits at the bridge table were a never-ending topic of conversation among the members of the club. It was not because she played so badly; it was rather because of the types of mistakes she made.

This deal ranks as one of Sylvia’s greatest accomplishments. It occurred soon after she joined the club, and shortly after she had decided to fight fire with fire by adding the falsecard to her already bizarre arsenal of weapons.

Sylvia was West and led the J-10 and another spade, won by South with the ace. Declarer saw that his best chance was to try to establish dummy’s hearts, and that this had to be done without permitting East to take the lead. It seemed likely from the bidding that East had the king of hearts, and declarer therefore had to hope Sylvia had the jack.

Accordingly, he led a diamond to the ace and returned the queen of hearts. East followed low and so did South, but it was here that Sylvia introduced her newest weapon, the falsecard, by playing her jack on the queen! Sylvia hoped that this play would somehow deceive declarer.

The effect of the falsecard

was that South could no longer establish dummy’s hearts without eventually losing the lead to East, and he finished down two.

Had Sylvia made the normal play of the four of hearts on the queen, declarer would surely have made the contract. He would have continued with a low heart from dummy and played low from his hand, forcing Sylvia to win the trick with the jack. Nothing could then have stopped South from making three notrump.

Tomorrow: How to capture a sovereign.