At the table, reflexively concluding the heart deuce is a singleton is perhaps understandable.

If Zia really has a club suit headed by the AK, he should be able to give his partner club ruffs right now before trump can be played. Zia cannot see the trump ace in his hand, and so cannot expect to win the first trump and proceed with a defensive crossruff. If the heart deuce is a singleton, then West has a quite respectable five-card heart suit but somehow chose to pass Zia’s 3C T/O double response holding only a singleton (or maybe small doubleton) for support.

Also, would West have balanced with a double holding more than two spades? Even with a doubleton spade, the supposed 5-card heart suit and club shortness would force West to hold a diamond suit, making it a red 2-suiter. Why not bid 3D over 3C to essentially offer Zia a choice of reds?

The heart deuce as singleton just does not add up.

HBJ : If West had 5-5 in the minors would he have bid 2S over South’s one ? Yet he is prepared to protect against 2S with a double in the pass out seat. Does this suggest a heart suit but only to the 4 ? East 3C is clearly a clever move : if West has clubs then all is well, and if he hasn’t then he will surely have ( and bid ) his diamond suit. Moreover if defending 3 spades a club lead gets E/W off to a good start.
Personally, the 2 of hearts has to be a ploy. Firstly, it is giving declarer a free finesse…..one which was always there for the taking anyway. But the object of course is to panic declarer. However, if West had five diamonds then he would have surely bid 3D instead of 3 clubs THEREFORE HE HAS 4 OR LESS in diamonds….giving West 5. Moreover West must be short in spades to justify his take out double. This leaves him with 7 cards in hearts and clubs… and if he had 5 hearts then we are back to the argument that would 5-5 in the red suits he would spring into action straightaway.
THe singleton 2 is an illusion…….and one deception that can be revealed by careful analysis.

To HBJ,
the analysis you have made is correct, but at the table one is not always calculates the same way as at the drawing board. The game is a game of mistakes and one can do very well by inducing the declarer to a wrong thinking path. i played at the league yesterday and had QJ962 at dummy and 874 in my hand, the lead was 3. After a consideration i played the 2 from the table only to kick myself when the 10 held the trick …. lucky for me it did not cost us.

Alex Alon
Israel

Hi Jim2, HBJ, and Alex,

All of your above comments constitute a winning trifecta, which is, above all, the purpose for writing.

However, in my experience, Zia and perhaps Benito Garozzo, had a quality about them, which at the table, had the ability to mesmerize, even competent declarers, into thinking that fantasy is real.

Just another reason to lionize our game by forcing all of us to realize just what defensive gambits (in this case) are out there to serve as weapons for victory and, for that matter, to suggest to us the significant depths and peaks to which our game can roam.

You do not have to either experience it up close or personal, to enjoy the imagination required to effect it, and as a matter of keeping one’s ego in tack, it probably is more satisfying to just merely read about it.

To repeat, all of you are entirely correct in your reasons for not falling for the ruse, but many of us have bought those bridges before and have the scars, empty pockets and most sorrowfully, lost events, to prove it.

HBJ : Or perhaps some of us don’t even notice the ” 2 ” and play the hand like everything was behaving !