Contract Bridge

The art of falsecarding is a study in itself. Most falsecards are well- known to the experienced player, but some of them are so rare that they are almost never seen. Today’s deal features an exceptional falsecard that enabled declarer to make a contract that otherwise would have failed.

West led the king of spades, and South saw immediately that if West had the king of diamonds, a simple finesse would yield five diamond tricks and the contract. So South had to consider what might happen if East had the king of diamonds.

It was clear that if he won the spade king with the ace and took the diamond finesse, he would go down if the finesse lost and East had a spade to return. South also realized that if he refused to win the first trick, West would almost surely shift to a heart rather than continue a spade after he saw East’s discouraging signal. In the actual deal, had South ducked the king of spades, West would have shifted to the king of hearts, and the contract would have been doomed.

And so, fully cognizant of the danger of playing the ace of spades at trick one and the futility of playing the deuce, South played the jack instead!

This extraordinary falsecard produced the desired result. West naturally assumed that South had started with the A-J doubleton and therefore continued with the queen of spades. Declarer won, led the queen of diamonds and finessed. East took the king but did not have a spade to return, so South wound up with nine tricks.

Note that if East had had a third spade to return — which would mean West started with only four spades — South would have made the contract anyway, since West would have had only two more spades to cash.