Charlie the Chimp has been on the lookout for another opportunity to cross swords with SB and one occurred on this hand from the North London club this week. None of your Jacoby or Bergen for Molly the Mule, North, who just raised to game.
ChCh led the jack of diamonds and RR, East won and played one back, hoping the lead was from an interior sequence. SB won, drew trumps in two rounds, ChCh discarding a small heart, cashed the queen of diamonds and led a heart towards the KJ.
ChCh could see what was coming. If he played low, declarer would probably play the jack and East would win with the ace, and RR would make his "safe" exit with another heart, rather than the necessary club to break up the endplay. The "expert" play here was the queen, but that would be pearls before swine with RR. It would tell anyone else that it did not matter which heart declarer played, and therefore partner needed to play a club when he won, but RR might think it was a singleton and try to give him a ruff. After about 30 seconds, ChCh played low, proud of his deceptive hesitation. SB played the king and RR won with the ace. He was pretty sure that the queen of hearts had not gone, and had a brainwave that if he returned a club, the hearts would be blocked and declarer could not get at the queen of hearts in time. His club return was the death knell to the contract, whether or not declarer ducked in dummy.
SB pressed the "Call Director" button repeatedly. Eventually OO arrived. "There was a break in tempo in a particularly sensitive situation." He began. "ChCh deceived me with the break in tempo, and although it did not matter which card I played, if I had played the jack of hearts, RR might well have returned a "safe" heart."
"Hmmm", replied OO, "it seems to me that ChCh had a "demonstrable bridge reason". He was considering playing the queen of hearts but decided against it."
How do you rule?
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If you have more than one card in the led suit, you can usually conjure up some "Bridge reason" for a hesitation. IMO, here, ChCh could have known that his tank might act in his favour, so I feel the director should rule in favour of SB.