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Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Don’t be fooled! : countering deception at bridge / Danny Roth

Names: Roth, D. L. M. (Danny L. M.), author.
Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190076380 | Canadiana (ebook)
20190076399 | ISBN 9781771400510
(softcover) | ISBN 9781554946471 (PDF) | ISBN 9781554946921 (HTML)
| ISBN 9781771408912 (Kindle)
Subjects: LCSH: Contract bridge.
Classification: LCC GV1282.3 .R675 2019 | DDC 795.41/53—dc23

Editor Ray Lee

Copy editor/Interior format Sally Sparrow
Cover design Olena S. Sullivan/New Mediatrix

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 22 21 20 19
 Contents

Introduction  7

Section 1
Chapter 1: A Single Suit in Isolation  15
Chapter 2: Ruffing Threats  31
Chapter 3: Further Discussions on Length  41
Chapter 4: The Phantom Green Light  55
Chapter 5: Strength and Weakness  71
Chapter 6: Deception in the Endgame  85

Section 2 
Chapter 7: To Cover or Not to Cover  93
Chapter 8: A Surprise from Greece  107
Chapter 9: Honors and Length  121

Section 3 
Test Yourself  133

 | 3 |
 All warfare is based upon deception.
Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable;
When using our forces, we must seem inactive;
When we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away;
When far away, we must make him believe we are near.
Sun Tzu
 Introduction

Are you a gullible person — easily taken in? Do you find certain op-
ponents particularly difficult to play against because they are continually
making deceptive opening leads, playing falsecards and adopting strange,
apparently anti-percentage, lines of play or defense? Not to mention what
they are liable to do during the auction!
Well, it is time you did something about it — you need to become an
equally difficult person to play against and just as difficult to fool. The
considerable amount of literature on play and defense includes a number
of books that have highlighted falsecards and other forms of deception;
however, up until now almost nothing has been written on how to combat
these practices. All too often there is little you can do but try to guess
whether you have been fooled or not, but that’s not always the case. Over
the years a fair number of deals have been reported in which top-class
players have been conned unnecessarily. With a little anticipation and
deeper knowledge, they could have avoided trouble. In the last of its three
main sections, this book will display a collection of such deals in quiz
form; my aim is to show readers how to recognize potentially dangerous
situations and, if possible, take evasive action in good time.
The number of books I have written on bridge is now running into the
mid-twenties, so my readers will fall into two categories. A special wel-
come is extended to those who are joining me for the first time. I hope you
will enjoy and benefit from my style and presentation. Those who have
subjected themselves to one or more doses of me before and are obviously
gluttons for punishment will know that my method of presenting bridge
problems, in both declarer play and defense, differs from that of other au-
thors in one important respect.
Everybody else will put a problem in front of you, give the method of
scoring, bidding and early play and take you up to the critical point of the
deal. They will then ask for your continuation. Most of the time I shall
do the same but — be warned — not always! On a number of occasions,
I shall stop well short of, or go well past, the vital moment. As I have ex-
plained in previous books, this is obviously far more realistic. When play-
ing in your local club’s duplicate pairs, an important team-of-four match,
or in a major tournament, you will not have the benefit of some expert

Introduction | 7 |
sitting at your side ready to tap you on the shoulder at the critical moment
and say ‘This is it!’ You have got to be on the ball the whole time without
any such prompting.
Thus, when I pose a problem, you will be expected to give a full analy-
sis, stating a logical understanding of what has happened so far and how
you expect the remainder of the play to go. Readers of my previous books
will be familiar with my seven “roll-calls”: count in each of the four suits,
distribution of high-card points and the number of tricks immediately
available to declarer and defenders — and should be able to anticipate
impending trouble well before it happens. Of course, this is important at
all times but particularly so when deceptive positions are involved. In the
deals presented in problem form, top-class players allowed themselves to
be deceived because they failed to appreciate what their opponents were
up to, still less what to do about it well in advance. Thus, in all deals,
whether they involve deceptive play or not and whether you are declarer
or (unless you are an extremely selfish and/or aggressive bidder, twice as
often) a defender, a priceless habit to get into is to anticipate how the play
is going to proceed, what your opponents’ plans are and, when defending,
how you intend to counter them and/or help your partner to do so.
It is stating the obvious that, if you are going to deceive your
opponent(s), the earlier in the play you do it, the better your chance of
success. Similarly, if you are likely to be the victim of deception, the earlier
in the play that you spot a dubious situation ahead, the better your chance
of avoiding trouble. So this applies right from Trick 1. Once the opening
lead has been made and dummy tabled, both declarer and defenders (par-
ticularly East, third to play — we shall be adopting the usual format of
making South declarer) should take their time to assess the situation and
anticipate how play will proceed. As the old proverb goes, ‘A stitch in time
saves nine!’ implying that, for example, a telling signal now could avoid
embarrassing problems later on.
Enough of the preamble; let me explain that, as indicated earlier, the
book is divided into three main parts. We shall start by summarizing com-
mon situations where deception is possible. These have been organized
under various headings, but obviously there will be a certain degree of
overlap. Only when I researched the subject did I realize how enormous
the world of deception is: as the old saying goes, you only realize how
ignorant you are when you start learning! Here, the potential victim will
simply have to guess whether he is being misled or not. In the second sec-
tion, we shall concentrate on situations where he has enough evidence to
be suspicious, although the counter will by no means be clear-cut.

| 8 | Don’t Be Fooled
 Finally, a number of real-life problems will be presented to you, in
the usual quiz form, where deception was successful but, in my opinion
at least, the victim could have steered well clear of trouble. Rather than
putting them under the various headings from Part 1, they will appear
randomly as they would at the table. I have, however, tried to present
them approximately in order of increasing difficulty. By the time you start
solving those, you should be familiar with potentially deceptive positions
and know what to do. If you do get them wrong, then so much the better
to fail now, when it costs nothing, rather than at the table.
As in my previous books, I am going to present you with a warm-up
problem to illustrate the points I have made above. So here, to start with,
you are East, playing teams:

E-W vul.  J
 J 9
 K J 10 6 4 2
 Q 9 6 4
 K 9 8 6 5 2
N  6 4
W E  3
S
 10 8 5 3

West North East South

1
dbl 2 3 4
dbl all pass

Partner leads the A, dummy playing the 4. In a position like this, with
the Q in dummy, you are obviously expected to give count, so, in the
normal manner, you correctly play the 8 to show an even number and
South plays the J. Partner switches to the 3, dummy’s 9 winning as
South follows with the 2. Declarer now calls for the K from dummy,
dropping the Q from his hand as partner wins with the A. He now
cashes the A and switches back to the 8. Dummy plays the 10. How
do you defend?
It may well be that South is now also out of diamonds but it cannot
possibly cost to ruff; so that is what you do to take the contract one down.

Introduction | 9 |
 The full deal:
 J
 J 9
 K J 10 6 4 2
 Q 9 6 4
 A 10 4  K 9 8 6 5 2
 7 5 3 N  6 4
 A 9 8 W E  3
S
 A K 7 2  10 8 5 3
 Q 7 3
 A K Q 10 8 2
 Q 7 5
 J

But now let’s see what happened at the table when this deal occurred in
a top-class American tournament. West felt obliged to take some action
over South’s opening bid and it is the modern style to compete on these
hands for fear of ‘missing out’. This is totally wrong in my opinion in that
West, with a hand much better suited to defense, lacks four cards in the
other major and has the wrong shape with too many hearts. But I am
not here to get into arguments about bidding style; that is for another (be
warned — highly controversial!) book.
The early play proceeded as described above. Declarer had realized
that, if he drew trumps before knocking out the A, he would lose at least
four tricks off the top; against that, if he didn’t, he risked running into a
diamond ruff, the bidding strongly suggesting that West held at least three
diamonds. So, caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, he tried
to mislead West about the diamond position. After cashing the A, West
took the view that, as it was ‘obvious’ that South’s Q was singleton, he
surely was still holding at least one more club. Consequently, after the A,
he tried to cash the K, presenting declarer with the contract.
Need this have happened? At the table, East gave count in the spade
suit — totally irrelevant. My concern is which spade did you play on
that ace? It should have been the king, a clear request for a switch to the
higher-ranking of the two minors.

| 1 0 | Don’t Be Fooled
 I hope that you now see my point. I have emphasized many times in
previous books that failure to use suit-preference signals is the principal
cause of misdefending at all levels of bridge. But now suppose that I had
presented the problem like this:
Partner leads the A, dummy playing the 4. In a position like this,
with the Q in dummy, you are obviously expected to give count, so you
play the 8 and South plays the J. Partner switches to the 3, dummy’s
9 winning as South follows with the 2. Declarer now calls for the K
from dummy, dropping the Q from his hand as partner wins with the A.
He now cashes the A; which card do you play?
Now you would surely have realized that this was your big moment
and almost certainly come up with the right answer. But did you do so the
first time? I should be very surprised if you can honestly say, ‘Yes’!
It is time to start the detailed work. I hope you will enjoy it.

Introduction | 11 |
 Section 1

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some
of the time.
Phineas T. Barnum

In which we survey some common deceptive positions...

 Cha pter 1

A Single Suit in Isolation

We shall work our way through positions that come up frequently and
start by concentrating on layouts in a single suit. The relevant factors are
obviously length, strength and lines of communication, notably where a
long suit is displayed in an otherwise weak dummy and declarer may have
problems in establishing and reaching his winners. The most common
example of this arises when South has a big balanced hand with strength
at or near 2NT-opening level and has been raised to game by his partner,
who proudly tables a long minor suit but little else.
In the world of deception, the important parameters are as follows:

1) How many tricks does declarer need?

2) How much does he know about his opponents’ hands? If there has
been no bidding, the answer may be ‘very little’. However, if your
bidding has been descriptive (with varying reliability), the picture
could change dramatically and you must be prepared to adjust
your approach accordingly.
3) It is vital to give your opponents as little information as possible.
This almost invariably means that, if you are known to hold a spe-
cific card or it is clear that you will soon be known to hold that
card, you should play it as soon as possible unless you obviously
cannot afford to do so. If you play other cards, you are simply giv-
ing declarer more information than he is entitled to — purely for
his benefit.

Chapter 1 — A Single Suit in Isolation | 15 |

Let’s tabulate some everyday situations. In each case, South has shown a
big hand and is in 3NT. The bulk of his tricks will come from dummy’s
long diamonds and we shall display various layouts like these; you are
West:
 A K Q 6 5 4
 J 7  10 9 2
 8 3

or  A K J 6 5 4
 Q 7  10 9 2
 8 3

or  A Q J 6 5 4
 K 7  10 9 2
 8 3

South plays a low card from his hand. In each case, if you play low, de-
clarer will simply call for the lowest of dummy’s three honors and wrap up
six tricks. But if you play your honor on the first round, for all declarer
knows, the position might look like this:

 A K Q 6 5 4
 J  10 9 7 2
 8 3

or  A K J 6 5 4
 Q  10 9 7 2
 8 3

or  A Q J 6 5 4
 K  10 9 7 2
 8 3

Declarer now has the choice of winning, in which case he will be restricted
to three tricks in the suit, or ducking, to ensure five. But in that latter case,
you will have won a trick to which you had no right. Note that playing
your honor can never cost.
We shall look at more situations where ‘second hand high’ can give
declarer headaches even when he has no entry problems:

| 1 6 | Don’t Be Fooled
  A K 10 9 5 4
 Q 7  J 6
 8 3 2

On the 2, play your Q. Declarer now has the option to play for:

 A K 10 9 5 4
 Q J 7  6
 8 3 2

Even if West plays the 7 on the first round, rather than the Q, East can
drop the J under dummy’s honor. Now declarer may feel obliged to use
an entry to return to hand in order to take a ‘restricted-choice’ finesse
against West on the second round. This is not to mention that, in a suit
contract, a defender may be void in that entry suit and get a ruff. Declarer
has no chance to go wrong if both defenders play low on the first round.

 A Q 10 6 5 4
 K 7  J 9 2
 8 3

Here, on the first round, play your K. Declarer may read this as single-
ton, which would give your partner  J9xx and a double stopper; he may
decide to seek his fortune elsewhere. If you play low, declarer will play
dummy’s 10 and the suit will come in for five tricks.
Even sitting East, you can also cause problems:

 A K 10 6 4 2
 9 5  Q J 3
 8 7

This time, South may be the opponent with a weak hand, typically after a
sequence like this:

North South
pass
1 1NT
3NT pass

Chapter 1 — A Single Suit in Isolation | 17 |

The lead is in the North hand, and declarer may start diamonds with a low
card — if he does, there is little to discuss. However, with plenty of entries
and other options, he may call for a diamond honor from dummy. Unless
you are worried about an endplay, try dropping one of your honors. Now
declarer may cross to hand to play a low diamond toward the 10 on the
second round to cater for this position:

 A K 10 6 4 2
 J 9 5 3  Q
 8 7

This might mean that he has had to expend a valuable entry.

It is particularly important, when you have a card that has been fi-
nessed against successfully, to play it as soon as possible, preferably on the
next round:
 A Q 6 4 2
 K J 9  10 5 3
 8 7

Spades are trumps and declarer is trying to establish diamonds as his long
side suit. After a diamond to the Q, he calls for the A. You must drop
your K, at least making declarer worry about:

 A Q 6 4 2
 K 9  J 10 5 3
 8 7

Now declarer is threatened with possible overruffs and in any case, will
need a lot of entries and hard work to set up that fifth diamond. He
may well abandon the suit, while, if you follow with the J on the second
round, the position will be clear and he will have no further problem.
Similarly here:
 A Q 6 4 2
 K J 9 3  10 5
 8 7

Again, drop the K on the second round. Threatened with overruffs, de-
clarer may well look elsewhere. We shall be looking at the ruffing threat
in more detail in the next chapter.

| 1 8 | Don’t Be Fooled
 Similar reasoning applies here:

 A J 4
 Q 10 6  8 5 3
 K 9 7 2

On the first round, declarer plays low from the South hand to dummy’s J.
When he calls for the A, you must drop your Q as if the position were:

 A J 4
 Q 6  10 8 5 3
 K 9 7 2

Declarer now has an awkward decision on the third round, whereas if you
play the 10 on the second round, he has no problem.
Still with the Q missing, you can give declarer a losing option as
West here:

 A K 6 4 2
 Q 10  8 5 3
 J 9 7

When South leads the 7 on the first round, play your Q, giving the
impression of:

 A K 6 4 2
 Q  10 8 5 3
 J 9 7

Declarer has a losing option on the second round. The same applies here:

 A Q 6 4 2
 K 10  8 5 3
 J 9 7

On the first round, play your K, painting this picture:

 A Q 6 4 2
 K  10 8 5 3
 J 9 7

Chapter 1 — A Single Suit in Isolation | 19 |

Again declarer will sometimes go wrong. At worst, you will have lost
nothing.
In this next example, you are East; South has shown a big hand with
a diamond suit and is now on play:

 J 5 2
 7 6 3  Q 10
 A K 9 8 4

If you play the 10 when he plays the A, declarer cannot go wrong, but
dropping the Q makes it look as if this is the layout:

 J 5 2
 10 7 6 3  Q
 A K 9 8 4

and he may well finesse against the 10 on the second round.
This is another position where playing an honor can hardly cost:

 A J 7 4 2
 Q 9  10 8 6
 K 5 3

Declarer is booked for five tricks but when he plays the K, try dropping
the Q. Now declarer may read the position as:

 A J 7 4 2
 Q  10 9 8 6
 K 5 3

Now, notably if East is the danger hand (he has winners to cash or West
has a tenace position over South in another suit), declarer may abandon
the suit, preferring to look elsewhere. Note again that playing the Q
cannot cost.
With an entryless dummy, this is another position where you can play
the card you will soon be known to hold with little risk:

 K 10 6 4 2
 J 9 8 3  5
 A Q 7

| 2 0 | Don’t Be Fooled
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ADVANCED

DON’T BE FOOLED!
Many books have been written on falsecards
and other deceptive plays at the bridge table.
However, there is very little help available on
how to recognize when the opponents are
trying something sneaky, and what can be
done in terms of counter-measures. This book
fills that gap — readers will learn the most
common situations where deceptive play by the
opposition may occur, and the most effective
ways to nullify the threat.

DANNY ROTH (UK) has more

than a dozen books to his credit,
and is a regular contributor to
bridge magazines around the
world.

MASTER POINT PRESS

978-1-77140-051-0