A practical demonstration of adventurous deceptive lead was given by Fehmina Shouk, an outstanding bridge player, who took full advantage of making a deceptive move to outwit the declarer in a deal which was played at Lahore Gymkhana in the trails for bridge national championship some time back. Her innocent looks and calm attitude at the table could lead any opponent to believe her moves as genuine and natural play of cards.
In one of the deals during a tense session of the game she made a deceptive lead, which disarmed the opponent, and led him astray in misjudging the move, resulting in the defeat of a near certain slam contract.
But one such move was good enough to defeat a contract on a particular deal but it was not good enough to secure a top slot in the championship to get an entitlement to represent the country.
That deal, which aroused applause from the kibitzers for her, is given below: -
WEST LED HEART ACE:
By virtue of a very strong hand the North raised the bid of two hearts from the partner to six hearts unhesitatingly.
When the dummy came down the South had no problem in making the contract, except in the case the East held the ace and queen of hearts, which was a very remote possibility of holding ace and queen in hearts, when he started a pre-emptive bid of three clubs.
When Fehmina led the ace of hearts followed by seven of hearts with out blinking the declarer was certain that the doubleton queen should come under king. As such the declarer played small card on the ace from the dummy East played 5 and South 2 on the first trick.
On the lead of seven of hearts at trick two the declarer played the king assuming that the queen of hearts would drop under it.
But alas the East dropped seven of clubs leaving the declarer stupefied to lose two trump tricks for the contract to go down because of deceptive lead by Fehmina and following it by a small card.
On the other table the North-South partners reached the same contract on similar bidding and the South succeeded in making it with the lead of small club, which was ruffed in the dummy and the declarer came back to hand with the queen of diamonds which was overtaken by diamond king in hand.
Next he played the nine of hearts and ran it through when seven appeared from the West and he continued with 8 of hearts trapping the queen of hearts with the king and ultimately losing only one trick to lose to the ace of trump to make a small slam in hearts.
Golden Tips:
Deceptive bids and cardings in bridge are considered a part of the game.
Dealer East
North-South Vulnerable
North West East South
S AKJ1062 S 95 S 83 S Q74
H KJ1063 H AQ7 H 5 H 9842
D AQ D J76532 D 1094 D K8
C --- C 42 C AQJ9873 C K1065
The bidding:
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West North East South
Fehmina Asif Tahir Fareed
Shouk Ali Abbas
--- --- 3C Pass
Pass Dbl Pass 3H
4C 6H Pass Pass
Pass
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