Being caught with your hand in the cookie jar must be embarrassing enough, but almost worse is being suspected/accused of cheating when you’re not!

These days everyone (particularly online) is on their guard, and if you make a good play you can suddenly become the focus of attention for the wrong reason. My good friend Nick Sandqvist was playing a regular cut-in game on BBO with his favourite partner, when the following hand turned up (See diagram).

South’s hand is playable in three suits, so Nick elected to start the bidding on the 1-level, but when partner had enough to make a negative double (showing hearts) he was off to the races. West led the ♣K.

A Spade finesse into the overcaller was not on the agenda, so he had to somehow discard a Spade from dummy on the Diamonds, and ruff a Spade in dummy. He couldn’t afford to ruff any Diamonds though (he couldn’t both ruff a Diamond, then draw trumps and then ruff a Spade – not enough trumps), so somehow he had to get them running without ruffing one.

Nick won the ♣A and immediately played the ◆J running it when East didn’t cover! This was a neat idea, but it’s also the only technical chance of making the contract: West must have 10,9 doubleton of diamonds. Even if East had covered, the Diamonds would have been good. Three rounds of trumps could have been drawn, and a Spade eventually ruffed in dummy. Could have? Yes, when Nick ran the ◆J at trick two, East wrote a comment comparing him to a famous Italian cheater, and left the table.

Be careful you don’t play too well!