Devilish

A Devil's Coup is a way to make an apparently sure trump trick vanish. The position is fairly well-known, but there are some variations on it.

Playing in a knockout match, one of my opponents has QJ-fifth of trumps and the only trick he scores with those trumps is the opportunity to ruff his partner's winner! It's not strictly a Devil's Coup, but it feels like one.

	Q10 Q43 K1098 KQJ8

	J53 A10752 A72 32

West	North	East	South
—	—	1	Pass
1NT	Pass	2	Pass
Pass	2NT	Pass	3
All Pass

I have no idea why partner bid at all, but if he was going to balance, at least he could get hearts into the picture. 3

doesn't look like much of a contract, off three top tricks, at least one heart, and at least one trump trick. 2

doesn't look like it has a chance, either.

The opening lead is the K. RHO encourages, wins the second trick with the A, and continues with the 9. LHO ruffs my J low, and I overruff. The trumps look right for the standard Devil's Coup matrix, but I don't know who has the long trump yet, so I must embark on some investigation. I start by leading the K from dummy. RHO grabs it, and after a fair bit of thought, shifts to a small heart. That runs to my Q, so one obstacle has been overcome. I now have only four losers outside the trump suit. It looks like RHO has six spades and three hearts. If he has two clubs and two diamonds, there's nothing I can do, but if he has three clubs and a singleton diamond, I think I have a chance now.

I cash the A, getting the J from RHO, confirming that hearts are 2-3. The Q and J hold as I pitch a heart. Good. Hmmm...does LHO have 2-2-5-4 or 2-2-6-3? He didn't seem to give any thought to doubling 3. Even with spots that bad, six trumps ought to give someone pause to upping the ante, so I'm pretty sure that the last club is on my left. I lead dummy's last club and RHO pitches a spade. I ruff, of course.

Now I have them. I exit with my last heart. LHO has to ruff his partner's heart trick. With an innocent air, he continues with the J, but that doesn't fool me at all; RHO is counted out for a singleton trump. I win in hand and take the marked trump finesse to make 3.

The defense has lost their way a number of times. Even right at the end, RHO could pitch his heart on the last club, and if he has a diamond other than the 3, he can overruff his partner and avoid the endplay. Discarding a winner in order to generate a defensive overruffing grand coup is one heck of a play.

Despite the suboptimal defense, I'm still pretty pleased. I don't think I have ever seen a defender with QJxxx in trumps make no tricks other than ruffing his partner's winner.