"Sorry, partner," said Tony Forrester to David Bakhshi after this deal from last year's Gold Cup final. "I ran into a desperately unlucky trump break – the suit was 3-2 with the finesse right." My counterpart at the Daily Telegraph was not being entirely serious – he had in fact run into a simple yet devilish false card from his opponent, Gerald Tredinnick. Love all, dealer North.

(1) A variant of the "multi-coloured 2♦", showing a wide variety of hands, one of which might be... (2) a weak two bid in ♥, in which case North would pass, but since he in fact had ... (3) a strong three-suited hand with short ♥, he bid the suit below his singleton, whereupon ... (4) his partner made an artificial enquiry, and when North showed ... (5) 19-20 points. South converted to game in the 4-4 major-suit fit.

West led his singleton ♣, East put in the 10 and South won with the K. It seemed a dull hand – Forrester would take the ♠ finesse, draw a second round of trumps, knock out the A♦ and lose a trick in each suit apart from ♥. But when he led a ♠ as the first stage, West played not the J but the K. Aware that this might not be a singleton, Tony also knew that when an opponent plays something that might or might not be a true card, it's best to believe it. You may pay off if they have done something brilliant, but don't look foolish if they have been following suit. If the K were West's only ♠, the contract might still be made with favourable splits in the other suits, but it would be fatal to draw a second round of trumps – that would allow East to draw two more rounds when he obtained the lead, which would be hopeless. So Tony left the ♠ alone and fatally played dummy's K♦. West won with the A, gave his partner a ♦ ruff, received a ♣ ruff in return and played another ♦ to promote his twin brother's 10♠.