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Good declarers hide as much information from their opponents as they can. Forcing a defender to make a decision without the necessary data to get it right is an important technique. Sometimes, the opposite approach is needed by a tricky declarer.

Playing a regional open pairs, we are playing an unseeded pair, but they seem alert. I deal myself

AK2

AQ2

KQ32

532 The first thing I notice about the hand is the quality of the spot cards. It's a little heavy in high cards, but those spots are so bad, I downgrade the hand and open a 15-17 notrump. Partner checks for majors then jumps to 3NT, after which I get the

10 lead and see this dummy:

	Q975 K AJ654 J107

	AK2 AQ2 KQ32 532

Declarer	Dummy
1NT	2
2	3NT
Pass

Having escaped a club lead, I have eleven tricks on top. It might be fun to attack clubs to rectify the count for a spade-club squeeze, but not only is that unlikely, I'm already ahead of the field, so I don't want to risk an already good score. I'm nearly certain that if I run the

J, they'll switch to hearts, but the risk-reward ratio isn't very good.

Attacking clubs would be sneaky, but I have a better plan which is even sneakier. I win the first trick with the queen, letting LHO know the diamond suit as early as I can. I cash the K, cross back to the K, and cash the other two hearts, pitching clubs. I've now shown the opponents 11 HCP in my hand. On the run of the diamonds, LHO easily pitches a spade from J10xx, "knowing" that I can't have the AK, for that would give me 18 HCP. I end up with 12 tricks for a fine matchpoint score.

I have a lot of sympathy for LHO. Sometimes counting out the hand is unduly punished.