ACES ON BRIDGE

“Men are so simple and yield so readily to the desires of the moment that he who will trick will always find another who will suffer to be tricked.”

— Niccolo Machiavelli

The deceptive possibilities arising from letting go a nine or a 10 at the strategic moment seem virtually limitless. On the following hand, the maneuver was a widely known one, but it scored a goal nonetheless.

After a heart lead to the ace, East had to find a diamond shift to beat the contract legitimately. Instead, he played the normal-looking spade, which declarer won to lead a club to the jack. To create possible confusion for declarer, East dropped the club nine, trying to look like a man with the doubleton 10-9 of trumps.

It worked — though it probably shouldn’t have. When you play at the U.S. national championships, it is a fair assumption that your opponents were not born the day before the tournament.

Seduced by the sight of the nine, declarer crossed to hand with a top spade and advanced the club queen, which went to the king and ace. Now declarer cashed the heart queen and led a low diamond. East hopped up with the diamond king, cashed the club 10 and played a third spade. Declarer could ruff in dummy, but was left with a diamond and a heart still to lose.

It might seem that even after the trump misguess, South could have recovered. But declarer could not have succeeded even if she had left the heart queen in dummy as an entry to the diamonds. The defense plays spades at every opportunity, and the heart blockage leaves her with a diamond loser at the end.