Being caught with your hand in the cookie jar must be embarrassing enough, but almost worse is being suspected/accused of cheating when you’re not!
These days everyone (particularly online) is on their guard, and if you make a good play you can suddenly become the focus of attention for the wrong reason. My good friend Nick Sandqvist was playing a regular cut-in game on BBO with his favourite partner, when the following hand turned up (See diagram).
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South’s hand is playable in three suits, so Nick elected to start the bidding on the 1-level, but when partner had enough to make a negative double (showing hearts) he was off to the races. West led the ♣K.
A Spade finesse into the overcaller was not on the agenda, so he had to somehow discard a Spade from dummy on the Diamonds, and ruff a Spade in dummy. He couldn’t afford to ruff any Diamonds though (he couldn’t both ruff a Diamond, then draw trumps and then ruff a Spade – not enough trumps), so somehow he had to get them running without ruffing one.
Nick won the ♣A and immediately played the ◆J running it when East didn’t cover! This was a neat idea, but it’s also the only technical chance of making the contract: West must have 10,9 doubleton of diamonds. Even if East had covered, the Diamonds would have been good. Three rounds of trumps could have been drawn, and a Spade eventually ruffed in dummy. Could have? Yes, when Nick ran the ◆J at trick two, East wrote a comment comparing him to a famous Italian cheater, and left the table.
Be careful you don’t play too well!
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