Contract Bridge

Camouflage

Part of the skill in declarer play consists of giving as little information as possible to the defenders about your hand. For example, take this deal where South is in four spades.

First let's have him play the hand incorrectly. He wins the club lead with the king and cashes the ace, discarding a diamond. He then plays four rounds of trump and finesses the jack of hearts, losing to the king. East doesn't have to be a genius to know that he should now cash the ace of diamonds to hold South to 11 tricks.

At this point, East can count that declarer has seven trump tricks, the A-K of clubs and the three heart tricks visible in dummy for a total of 12 tricks. It becomes obvious to East that if he doesn't cash the diamond ace, it will go down the drain.

Now let's go back and have South play his cards a bit less revealingly. He wins the club in dummy and leads a spade to the ace. (There is no good reason to take an immediate discard on the ace of clubs, which would reveal that South started with only one club.)

Declarer next leads the three of hearts to the queen. He does not extract trumps first, which would disclose his trump holding. Also, he does not lead the jack of hearts. He allows each defender to think that the other might have the jack and that dummy's hearts might therefore not be solid.

East wins the heart queen with the king but does not know that he must now cash the ace of diamonds or lose it. From East's point of view, West might have the intermediate hearts, so East may return a spade or a club.

It is true that on this deal only 30 points are at stake, but there's no harm in perfecting your technique for those times when it really matters.