There was a particularly juicy deal during the recent European Open Mixed Teams in Ostend, which led to many pairs bidding and making a grand slam. My teammates, however, were prevented from reaching even a small slam when the Swedish player Peter Fredin made a devilish psychic bid against them. After two passes to him, he opened a strong no trump with no points. Talk about putting a spanner in the works!
I was so impressed by his psych that I texted Zia Mahmood to tell him about it. ‘Yes, I was watching on BBO [Bridge base Online],’ he replied. ‘Good bid by Fredin — but I think I’d have opened 2NT.’ That’s the thing about experts: they have no fear, and know exactly when and how to bluff. And not just in the bidding. When Zia arrived in Ostend for the Open Pairs, it was my turn to watch him on BBO, and I witnessed this classic deceptive play:
South led the ♠A and Zia (East), knowing a ruff was coming, dropped his ♠K. This persuaded South that it was Zia, and not North, who held a singleton. At trick two, South switched to a diamond, which went to dummy’s king and North’s ace. North continued with a diamond to Zia’s queen, and now Zia ruffed a diamond to get to dummy. After discarding his losing spades on the top clubs, he had to decide how to play hearts. He eventually played the ♥J from dummy, reasoning that if North held the ♥Q10 he would certainly cover. When North followed with the ♥10, Zia knew it was either a singleton or ace-doubleton: so he put up the king, and dropped South’s queen to make an impressive overtrick.
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