America's Stevie Robinson and Peter Boyd were on the wrong end of a brilliant deceptive play by France's Simon de Wijs on this board from the 4th session of the Société Générale World Open Pairs Championship.

Board 1. Dealer North. Love All ª 4 3 2 © Q 6 2 ¨ 5 3 § K Q 10 7 3 ª K Q 10 ª A 8 7 6 5 © 10 7 3 © 9 8 5 4 ¨ K 10 6 2 ¨ J 7 § A J 2 § 9 8 ª J 9 © A K J ¨ A Q 9 8 4 § 6 5 4 West North East South Robinson van Prooijen Boyd de Wijs Pass Pass 1NT Pass 3NT All Pass

They were so impressed they made sure the details made their way into the Daily News! With an awkward lead West went for the old standby, 'fourth best of your longest and strongest'.

The ¨2 went to the jack and declarer's ace! He played a club to the king and when that held he came back to hand with a heart and played another club to the queen. He then cleared the club suit. West was in with the ace and was at the crossroads.

East had followed to the clubs with the eight and then the nine. It was a Smith Peter situation but here East had been dealt poor spot cards and in any event would usually give count in case declarer could be cut off from the club suit. However in that situation many players then simply use the next suit as the one in which to tell partner how they feel about the opening lead. East had played the ©4 on the first round of the suit and discarded the ©9 on the third round of clubs. That would tend to suggest that East was hoping for a switch.

Whatever, West played the ¨K and followed it with a low one. Now declarer had eleven tricks.

Should West have been able to see through declarer's brilliant deception?

In our experience the image created in the mind when declarer plays the ace of diamonds is virtually impossible to overcome whatever the evidence of the subsequent cards played by partner.