bridge

Defenders sometimes have to be a bit creative to achieve their goal of defeating the contract. Consider this deal where West led the king of diamonds and continued with the ace, East contributing the 3-6 and South the 2-5. West then shifted to a heart, hoping to find East with the ace. Declarer won with the ace, crossed to dummy with a spade, led the club jack and finessed after East followed low. When the jack held, the finesse was repeated, and declarer easily made the rest of the tricks and the contract. Had the defence functioned somewhat more efficiently though, declarer would have gone down one. True, East would have had to tell a little white lie, but there’s surely nothing wrong with that if it stops declarer from getting home safely. East should have played the nine on West’s king of diamonds and the three on the ace, pretending that he had a doubleton diamond and wanted another diamond lead at trick three. From East’s point of view, his only real hope of stopping the contract was to force declarer to ruff in dummy, thereby ensuring that his king of clubs would eventually become the setting trick. This deliberate falsecard would have fixed declarer’s wagon beyond repair. Compelled to ruff the third diamond in dummy, South could then have taken only one finesse in clubs, and would eventually have had to lose a trump to the king and go down one. The principle that applies is that it’s perfectly OK to intentionally deceive your partner when a valid purpose is served by the deception. In the present case, partner might be baffled when you follow suit to the third diamond, but he will surely forgive you at the end of the hand.