Bill Jacobs has won many Australian national championships, the most recent three playing Fantunes, and has twice represented his country at Open level. He regularly provides astute vugraph commentary on Bridge Base Online. For the past ten years he has been editor of the monthly bulletin of the Victorian Bridge Association.

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Bridge is a game of infinite variety. In particular, and despite there being just 13 tricks to a deal, card-play offers seemingly unlimited potential for unusual strategies. In this series, we will look at examples of unusual plays that give off an aura of black magic. Some involve deception, others are simply technically correct approaches that do not initially leap to mind.

This awkward 3NT contract arose in a Congress Swiss Teams event. Dlr: South Vul: None

The lead is 6, and dummy’s king wins. Your best bet is clearly to find West with Q, in which case it can be finessed. But if you finesse and East wins Q, a spade return might make life distinctly uncomfortable.

Is there any Black Magic you can conjure up?

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Here is the full layout:Both the diamond and spade queens were poorly placed, but the resourceful declarer wrapped up two overtricks, without the defenders doing anything wrong.

South realized that if the Q was onside, it didn’t need to be finessed. He would happily lose the first round of diamonds to West’s queen, as that would leave the spades doubly protected.

So at trick 2, he led a small diamond off the dummy! One can hardly blame East for playing low: it would have been ludicrous for him to go in with the queen, when it was so likely that declarer was about to win A and then finesse the diamonds back to him. West won the diamond ace and played a second spade. Voila – 11 tricks.

It would have made no difference if West had ducked the diamond: South, knowing who held the queen, would have played to the king next.