There are players who indulge regularly in deceptive bidding. There is nothing wrong with this style if the practitioner can point to more successes than failures over the long haul.

The danger inherent in making such bids is that all too often the deceptive bidder misleads his partner instead of the opponents. Nevertheless, there are occasions when a well-calculated deceptive move can pay big dividends while running very little risk of luring partner into a critical mistake.

Consider the present deal, where Edith Freilich (formerly Kemp) held the South hand. Her partner opened one notrump, indicating 12 to 14 points in the partnership’s methods, and East overcalled with two spades.

Freilich felt that East-West were very likely to make at least a game in spades, so she did not see much point in making a routine bid of three hearts. Instead, she decided to bid two notrump, ostensibly showing some spade strength, in the hope of discouraging her opponents from persisting in spades.

As it happened, West had much too good a hand to bid less than four spades, but when this came around to Freilich, she bid five hearts. West then elected to take the safe course by doubling, and that ended the bidding. West led the K-Q-A of clubs, and five hearts doubled eventually went down one — 100 points.

Even if West had led or shifted to his singleton diamond and gotten a ruff, Freilich would still have gone down only two — 300 points. This would also have been an excellent result, considering that East-West could have scored 480 or 980 points by bidding a game or slam in spades.

Tomorrow: >> Famous Hand.

Steve Becker