Bridge - The Scotsman 02/03/2012

THE most effective deceptions are often genuine errors. On this deal from the Mixed Swiss teams South actually believed he had six diamonds for his weak two opener. Against 4H North led the ten of diamonds, and declarer made the reasonable assumption that the ten was singleton.

She won the ace, drew trump in three rounds and played ace, king and another spade. North could not effectively unblock, so she won the third round. If she had started with a singleton diamond she would now have to lead a black card, giving a ruff and discard with a spade, or leading away from the ace of clubs. Not a bad plan, but one that relied on a defensive error: if North had the ace of clubs she should lead the 13th spade, conceding the ninth trick with the ruff and discard, but not the tenth with the king of clubs.

Declarer needs South to hold the ace of clubs, and should really adopt the simple line of leading towards the king. It was particularly embarrassing when the attempted endplay failed. North produced her second diamond, and South won and led another diamond, forcing declarer to ruff in hand.

Now the only way to reach dummy to lead towards the king of clubs was by using her last heart – and with both hands out of trump South could win and cash a diamond. So she had to lead a club away from the king and go down in her game.