The Late Grosvenor
According to my, admittedly limited, researches, only the game of bridge lays claim to anything as devious as the Grosvenor Coup. This is defined as a play that offers an opponent a chance of success that did not previously exist but only by taking a course of action that reason dictates they cannot follow. A small example; let's say you have to bring in this suit at no-trumps without loss:
| ♦ A10976 | |||
| ♦ QJ2 | ♦ 3 | ||
| ♦ K854 | |||
When you cash the king from hand, west drops an honour. When you play a second round he follows with the two. It is madness to take what is now a finesse - why should he defend in this way? You will play for the drop and the answer is solely to pique you.
It is a purely psychological play; the exponent hopes to rile and that you will play worse subsequently, perhaps thinking the perpetrator is conniving on otherwise innocent deals. But beware! The fictional inventor of the coup, Philip Grosvenor, a character in a short story by Frederick B. Turner, was found beaten to death after choosing his victims unwisely.
Nevertheless if you are caught, the next few deals can be quite perplexing as you try to weigh up the setter of the trap - was it accident or design? I was snared recently but with a twist, it was the last deal of the evening:
| ♠ A8642 | ♠ KJ105 | ||
| ♥ J | ♥ 64 | ||
| ♦ K103 | ♦ 872 | ||
| ♣ A1052 | ♣ KQJ8 |
I opened a spade as west, north overcalled hearts, east supported me, south, reluctantly I thought, supported his partner and I arrived in four spades. North led ace and king of hearts and I ruffed. They had a lot of hearts, and south was tentative so I played him for spade length cashing the king first but on the second round, he showed out. I took the ace and played four rounds of clubs; north declined to ruff so I conceded a trump, the second trick I had lost, leaving this position:
| ♠ 8 | ♠ 10 | ||
| ♥ --- | ♥ --- | ||
| ♦ K103 | ♦ 872 | ||
| ♣ --- | ♣ --- |
I still had two slim chances of making game: if north had the singleton ace of diamonds they could win that but the forced heart lead would let me score both trumps. When they continued the queen of diamonds, the second chance was still alive - that they started with queen-knave alone.
To see how that works, consider south's choice: he can let the queen go, in which case the next diamond will endplay his partner or oblige him to overtake and set up declarer's ten. Or he can play ace on the queen but declarer's king will drop the knave on the next round again creating a trick for the ten.
South did win the queen with the ace and play a another diamond and I could either play the king trying to drop the knave or finesse. But the finesse is an illusion, it only wins when south started with both ace and knave and he could defeat the contract by playing low. I expect you can guess what happened. I rose with the king and north followed with the nine - 'Grosvenor'ed again.
But what did the perpetrator gain? Not an advantage on the next deal because there wasn't one. Well, I was still ruminating on the way home and I'm going to keep an eye on him, just to make sure there is no more funny business.
Published Saturday 20.Sep.2008