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False Carding
Here we look at situations where either the Declarer or a defender plays the non-standard card with the intention of fooling the other side. False carding is a lot safer for Declarer, of course, he does not have to worry about misleading Partner. See also Crossing Their Signals.
Related Extracts from Past Wednesday Games
East plays in 4♥, and, looking just at the E-W hands, how would you play the trump suit? If they are divided 4-1, you’ll want to play North to have the four, because if South started with J9xx you cannot pick up the suit anyway. So, let's say that you start with the King, then, assuming that both defenders follow with a low card, you’ll play a Heart to the Ace. However, suppose that North follows with the Nine. Now, you have a choice, you can pick up Jxxx in either hand. It may seem obvious to assume that the Nine is more likely to be a singleton than from J9xx, in which case you’ll want to cash the Q♥ on the second round, and run the Ten or the Eight next if North shows out.
“So what?”, you may be asking. Well, put yourself in the North seat next and imagine that you are holding J964 in Hearts. Dummy is on your right with that A752. Declarer lays down the K♥ and Partner follows with the 3. You can see that a competent Declarer will play a Heart to the Ace next, and that you will be finessed out of your Jack. Can anything be done about this? Yes! North must play the Nine! Now, Declarer has a losing option. Instead of being able to cater with just one of the 4-1 breaks, now he can pick up either if he guesses right. But, he’ll probably guess wrong, playing for the Nine to be singleton, and the false card will have conjured a defensive trick out of thin air. It’s another one of those “obligatory false cards”, so called because the play of the Nine is the only way to offer Declarer a losing option.
However, Declarer could have done better. On the first round of Hearts it was a mistake to lay down the King, letting North see Partner’s low Heart before it was her turn to play. If Declarer had crossed to Dummy and played a low Heart from the board instead, the false card of the Nine would be far from obligatory, and would blow a trick if Partner started with the singleton Ten. Remember this suit combination from both Declarer’s and the defender’s point of view.
It’s obvious to assume that Declarer will win the opening Diamond lead with one of his intermediate cards, but it might be fun to win with the King! Not only fun but potentially profitable too. Here are the two possibilities that Declarer is envisaging as he casually plays the K♦ at Trick One: (a) South has the K♠, which takes Dummy’s Queen. A Diamond comes back, Declarer playing the Seven, won by North’s Queen. South’s return of the Diamond Six might be somewhat strange from JT96, so North should smell a rat. But maybe she’ll already be in the mind-set that the Diamonds are running and she'll continue the suit. She’ll be quite right, of course, the Diamonds are indeed running, but it’s Declarer’s Diamonds! (b) North has the K♠ and pops up with it at Trick Two. North should cash a high Diamond first, and when South plays the Six, she’ll no doubt assume that her Partner started with JT986 and persist with the suit, and that would be 10 tricks without requiring the Spade break. Another possibility is that North underleads one or both of his Diamond honors, giving Declarer a mirthful 11 tricks!
That K♦ looks to us like a risk-free false-card to us. But, if North is not a trusting soul, she might see through the ruse by counting up the HCP’s. If Declarer really is trying to sneak a Spade trick with the Diamonds wide open then he cannot have more than 8 tricks, and that would give him the A♠, A♥, K♦, and K♣. That’s 14 HCP’s, where’s the 15th? If it’s a major suit Jack, then Declarer had a legitimate play for 9 by simply taking a major suit finesse. So, perhaps the 15th point is the J♦. Then again, which is more likely, a bizarre false card or a 14-point 1NT?
East leads the Diamond Nine, at which point, looking at all 4 hands, it’s easy enough to see that Declarer has 8 tricks, via two black Aces and 3 tricks in each red suit. But Declarer won’t know that the Clubs are so unfriendly and that the Hearts are so obliging, and a fiendish false-card from West might lure Declarer to her doom: East starts with the Diamond Nine to the Jack, Queen, Ace The Club Eight is run around to West’s King (tricky defense!) Spade shift to East’s Jack East reverts to Diamonds, won on the board Heart finesse, losing to East’s King Diamond continuation West’s false-card may have persuaded Declarer that the Club suit should be her source of tricks, in which case she might pitch a Heart on the third round of Diamonds and take another Club finesse for down one. Credit West for giving Declarer a losing option, but that was poor play by Declarer … on the third Diamond she should pitch a Spade from Dummy, cash the Q♥, cross to the A♥, after which she can see her 8 tricks without the dangerous repeat finesse in Clubs.
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