Here’s a bridge tip you won’t find in a book — one which the wonderful Gunnar Hallberg gave me. You’re declarer and a suit is led; dummy comes down with something like 8643, and it obviously doesn’t matter which card you play. Instead of routinely playing low, you should ask for a ridiculous, random card — say, the six. ‘The six?’ your partner (dummy) will ask, looking confused. ‘The six,’ you should repeat, emphatically. This has the effect of 1) making the opponents think you’re a scarily good player, and 2) distracting them from their defence while they try to work out why you might need to ‘unblock’ that particular card. If at the end they ask why on earth you played the six, Gunnar suggests just telling them you were petering.
Needless to say, Gunnar himself — star player on the world stage — has no need to resort to such shenanigans: his opponents are already quaking when they sit down to play against him.
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