Silly falsecarding

Lots of people hear about falsecarding when they reach intermediate level. They already saw it at the table when a good player 'fooled' them (or so they think), but never got more into it in detail. These days I see lots of absolute USELESS falsecarding. Here are some of the mistakes most made:
- they ALWAYS play their HIGHEST card -> that's 2 mistakes ;-)
- they play a high card too soon
- they play high-low every time they have Qxx in front of AKJ
- they make 'impossible' falsecards
- ...
All mistakes lead to the same result: it reveils the position of a certain suit to declarer, which can't be the purpose.

A few examples:
- You have a void in dummy, and AJxxx in your hand. You cash the Ace and you ruff a small one, RHO discarding the KING! It's quite impossible that the suit splits so badly, so you ruff another one and see RHO playing the TEN! Guess where the Q is... This is a foolish falsecard made by one of the best players in one of my local clubs, I really didn't knew what I saw.
- Another one of those: Jx opposite AKxx, you start with AK and see LHO play the Q. Now you ruff a small one and LHO plays the 9! Tnx for reveiling the 4-3 split.
- You play 4♥ with AJTx opposite xxxx. RHO leads a small ♥ (you try the J) and LHO takes with the King. LHO wouldn't lead from Qxx and when he has Qxxx you can't win. So you can just cash the Ace dropping the Q. If RHO would've played the Q, you can't make this conclusion.

There are some very good books on the subject. I haven't read one, but that's next on my personal list, because it's interesting to see WHY some falsecards really work.

Here kitty kitty

Here's a nice one for declarer play:

Dealer: West Vul: NS Scoring: imps	♠ KJ9862 ♥ Q2 ♦ AJ9 ♣ 93
♠ T ♥ J984 ♦ KT52 ♣ KQ84		♠ Q743 ♥ K7653 ♦ 87 ♣ J7
	♠ A5 ♥ AT ♦ Q643 ♣ AT652

I decided to open the South hand 1NT since I didn't like my rebids, and we ended up playing 4♠ by South. LHO leads ♠T which you cover and it holds. So you play another ♠ to the Ace and LHO discards ♥9. They play udca, so you now know where to find ♥K, and how to play the ♥ whenever any opponent plays them (if LHO plays them you have to hope he has ♥J).
Continue with ♦ to the Ace (since the finesse is quite useless - and we can still pick up Kx), and now there's already a key play: ♠K (discard ♣, West discards ♥8). According to double dummy solvers this is the only card which assures the contract. This hand is all about endplaying your opponents, and it's possible to endplay both of them since RHO has honour-small in ♣. If you don't play ♠K, you can't endplay RHO.

Now I played ♦ to the Q (slightly hoping for RHO having Kx) to my Q which lost to West. He continued a small ♦ to my Jack, which wasn't ruffed (♥ discard). A friend later told me that I would've gone down if the ♦J was ruffed, but that's not true. You'll see later why (*).
At this point I made a mistake by playing low ♣ and let it run. LHO overtook with ♣8 and played his last ♦ which I ruffed - and now my RHO made the mistake of not overruffing while he still had a ♣ to exit. So I could finish in beauty: ♣ to my Ace, ruff a ♣, and endplay East by playing my last trump.

So I made a mistake by letting the ♣ run. I should've played the Ace! The clearest is it when I now continue ♦ ruffed, here are several possibilities:
- RHO overruffs and plays ♣J. Now West can play low and East is endplayed, or he can overtake and is endplayed in 2 suits. (*) Something similar happens when RHO ruffs the ♦J.
- RHO discards a ♥. Now you can play ♠ with the same effect as before.
- RHO discards his ♣. Now you simply endplay him in trumps.

Relays with extreme hands

MOSCITO is a relaysystem: most common distributions (99% of the total I think) can be bid below 3NT, so slam approach can start very early. This has great advantages most of the time. You can show following shapes:
- all 3-suiters and balanced hands
- singlesuiters up to a 7 card suit
- 2-suiters up to 7-4 or 6-5

More extreme hands aren't included for several reasons:
- they are too rare
- when they come up, opponents usually intervene and relays will be off
- it blocks 'zooming' (= not bidding the usual bid, to show extra strength)
- they can still be shown pretty accurate (example a 8320 can be described as 7330). However, try to avoid lying about singletons or voids.

Playing MOSCITO, we use symmetric relays. Here's an extreme hand (it was hand dealt, unbelievable) which caused problems for the system:
♠AKQJTxxxx
♥xx
♦xx
♣-

My partner opened 1♣, showing 15+HCP with any distribution. I'd prefer intervention, but when opponents were quiet, partner could still reverse the relays if he had a misfit ♠. So I start by showing my GF with 4+♠. Opponents keep quiet, so we're in a relay auction. The tray comes back and you see partner didn't reverse the relays, so you'll have to try to show your shape as good as possible. You show a singlesuited hand with 6+♠ and hope partner will break relays, but that's just hope: partner keeps bidding his relay...

Bidding so far:
1♣ - pass - 1♥ - pass
1♠ - pass - 2♦ - pass
2♥ - pass - ...

So here you are with a huge problem:
- you can't show your shape good enough: a 7-3-3-0 is bid with 3NT, but partner may pass this with a ♠ void or even play 4♥. Showing a 7-2-3-1 is an alternative but here you're lying about your ♣ void which may cause you to miss the right slam. If I had another void, I could show the void first and hope for relaybreaks again, but with ♣ shortness you show the exact distribution immediatly.
- even if you show your shape right (7330 imo), it's not even close to your playing strength. You should be able to 'zoom' 3NT, but that will promisse more AKQ-points which you don't have. Partner will never be able to figure it out. We don't have 'shape-zooms'.
- you can't ask partner anything, since every bid is showing your hand.
- breaking relays is not easy.

At the table, my reasoning started like above, and ended with a 7♠ bid. I thought that partner should have extra's or 2+♠ since he didn't reverse relays. I gave partner more chance of having extra's, so he will probably have the high cards in ♣, ♦ and ♥. Lets just hope he doesn't miss an Ace, OR that the contract is rightsided and RHO doesn't have a killing red Ace.

When the tray was passed to the other side, my partner started to laugh, and it was passed out. Partner indeed had extra's, and we missed ♣A which was no problem. He had ♦AK and ♥AK so the contract was laydown.

Relays usually give you an enormous accurate slam auction, but in this case it was a real problem. You see, every system has it's own problems...

Tell your hand right away

I've been busy with exams lately, so I haven't had much time to play interesting hands. Here's one from yesterday:

Dealer: North Vul: EW Scoring: imps	♠ K964 ♥ J ♦ J862 ♣ JT97
♠ QT53 ♥ A876 ♦ KQ93 ♣ 3		♠ AJ872 ♥ KQ92 ♦ 5 ♣ Q64
	♠ - ♥ T543 ♦ AT74 ♣ AK852

The bidding starts:
pass - 1♠ - Dbl - RDbl
2♣ - 2♥ - ???

Now they've put me into a position where I have to make a decision how high I'll support ♣. I thought ♣ were going to split 3-1, so me and my partner would probably only make 2-3 tricks when opponents play in a Major contract. So lets put the pressure on, and immediately bid to the sacrifice: 5♣. Now my LHO went a bit coocoo and bid 6♠ (!!!) for some reason. I guess he didn't have his 'blacky' available anymore. ;-)

pass - 1♠ - Dbl - RDbl
2♣ - 2♥ - 5♣ - 6♠
All pass

This obviously was defeated. Question is: how far would they get in 4♠? Only a ♥ lead defeats it, since declarer has to go off lead and North gets 2 ruffs.
Even more interesting is how 4♥ does! Only ♦A followed by a ♥ switch defeats the contract (double dummy), because you now set up a trump trick and partner's ♠K. I don't think I'd find that lead...
And what about 5♣x? Only a trump lead gets it -3

Imo it's not easy to find 4♥, but the RDbl is really poor! He has a splinter available, which describes his hand a lot better! Now opener would be able to take a good decision after I bid 5♣.

Seeing a squeeze at trick 1

This one wasn't easy, and I only saw it afterwards. But I think I should've realized the potential of this hand:

Dealer: North Vul: Both Scoring: MP	♠ AQ85 ♥ 2 ♦ AQ963 ♣ AT3
♠ xxx ♥ KQxx ♦ Jxx ♣ Jxx		♠ JTxx ♥ Jxxx ♦ KTx ♣ xx
	♠ K3 ♥ AT94 ♦ 82 ♣ KQ984

You're playing 3NT and LHO starts with a small ♥ to his partner's J. Now, it seems like you have 10 tricks from the top if ♣ behave. How do you think to play as safe as possible for 11 tricks, and not losing 4 tricks? I thought playing safe on ♥ was probably safest so I cashed my Ace and played off my ♣ (deblocking the T in case they split 1-4). RHO discards 2 ♥ and a ♦, LHO discards 2 ♠. Now I started cashing ♠ and realized I didn't have a squeeze or endplay. 3NT+1 like the rest of the field.

Where did I go wrong? At trick 1 I needed to duck and take the 2nd ♥ with the Ace (or any other continuation in my hand if possible)! RHO can't do anything wrong and we have quite a lot of safety in playing ♣ for 5 tricks. Ducking rectifies the count, and have a triple squeeze against East. He needs to keep 4♠, 1♥ and ♦Kx but after running the ♣ suit, he can only keep 6 cards, so he'll probabaly discard another ♥. Now you can run 4 ♠s endplaying him to bring ♦ to the AQ fork.

What if LHO has ♠ without ♦K? Then there's always only 10 tricks, since ♦A can't squeeze him (no communication) and there's no use in endplaying West anyway.
What if LHO has ♦K without 4♠s? You'll be stuck in dummy and trying to endplay RHO in ♠ won't work. So a simple ♦ finesse would've been a lot more successful (which the rest of the field will probably do).
What if LHO has ♠ and ♦K? Then you have a triple squeeze against West.

So I guess it's a matter of placing ♦Kx and 4♠ together or apart, and play accordingly. Here the triple squeeze against East was possible, and I think it's the best line since you can also have a triple squeeze against West. You only give away a trick when LHO has ♦Kx without ♠, otherwise you gain. Ducking the first trick is the way to go.

Namyats 3NT or 4m

Lets talk about combining NAMYATS and minor preempts in your opening scheme.

First possibility:
3NT = Gambling
4m = NAMYATS

More and more people think that Gambling 3NT is a poor opening. I personally agree. Playing a light opening system, it gets more and more useful to open these natural and constructive. And opening 3NT wrongsides the contract for sure. Opening it 3♠ is brown sticker, so that's not always a possibility. So I really dislike the 1st opening scheme!

2nd & 3rd possibility:
3NT = 4-level preempt m
4m = NAMYATS

3NT = NAMYATS (♥ or ♠, suit unknown)
4m = natural preempt

I guess these are very close. It's probably a matter of preference: preempt natural, or bid constructive with a known suit. We'd love to be able to open 4m natural AND open our NAMYATS knowing the Major.

I'm no fan of 3NT as 4-level m preempt. Ok, sometimes you can play 3NT, but that's quite rare imo (and the only advantage). On the other hand, now your opponents get extra bidding space (and probably penalty doubles), which kills most of the preemptive effect.
Opening 3NT as NAMYATS has the disadvantage that your partner doesn't know which Major you hold. If opponents intervene, you might get into trouble. You also give opponents extra bidding space.

NAMYATS is still a preemptive opening, but it's more constructive than the minor preempt. That's why I think playing 3NT as NAMYATS is superior. If you're weak, you should always try to bid natural and put up the pressure.