Larry Cohen gave me my first driving lesson. I was 9.
Larry was always my parents’ fun friend and I’ve discussed the mischief we got into before, but this one might take the cake. You see, my sister and I loved driving Larry’s golf cart in Florida. Larry figured that since we liked driving so much, the next logical step would be to drive his Lexus.
We successfully navigated an empty parking lot with Larry's careful tutelage (and some help reaching the pedals). Afterwards, Larry said, “now let’s not tell your parents.” I was a bad secret keeper. I think I might have made it out of the car before screaming, ”Mom, you’ll never guess what we did!”
We never got a second driving lesson.
In bridge and in life, sometimes you’re better off concealing information.
| West | North | East | South |
|---|---|---|---|
1 |
|||
| Pass | 2* |
Pass | 2NT |
| Pass | 3NT | All Pass |
Dealer South
Both Vulnerable
*Inverted minor raise
 A93 KQJ QJ74 1083 |
||
| J1072 A75 K832 A6 |
Lead- 4
This looks like a pretty normal 3NT with 13 opposite 12. Partner might have bid 3NT herself, but it looks to play better from your side with this lead. Count your tricks; you start with one spade, three hearts and a club trick. It looks like your plan will be to work on diamonds for three tricks and then take a double spade finesse for a trick (playing low now and then playing towards the nine later). Anyway, you play low from dummy and East wins the K.
Are you waiting for me to tell you what East leads back? Not so fast. What did you play to trick one?
If you carelessly play the 2, then you can bet that a club is coming next. Let’s take a look at the full deal.
| A93 KQJ QJ74 1083 |
||
|
WEST
|
EAST
|
|
| J1072 A75 K832 A6 |
Imagine you are East. You see the 4 lead and think “Ok this could be a four-card suit or a five-card suit” since partner leads fourth-best from length. You can see the three in dummy, but if partner holds the 2, partner will have five spades in total.
You win the king and need to decide whether to switch or to continue this suit. It doesn’t feel like you have an outside entry to your clubs anymore (and you might be sitting up a trick for declarer; picture AQx) so it might be best to continue partner’s suit. Imagine partner with Q10542. Returning spades will kill this contract.
If declarer plays the 2, you now know that your future in spades isn’t so bright. Partner has at most 4 having led fourth-best (with no cards missing lower than the 4) and doesn’t have the QJ10 so declarer likely has that suit double-stopped. Now you'll switch to a club hoping for the best, and declarer is done. Continuing spades will lead to 9+ tricks.
It's important for declarer to casually throw the 7 to keep the opponents guessing rather than the 2 which reveals everything. As declarer, concealing the truth will keep the defense from knowing that a switch is right.