[42]

Hi all! I read with much interest the topic about falsecarding. My topic now has nothing to do with layouts but i.e. with psychology.
Whenever I was caught at the table, means a good player had success in falsecarding against me, I said "well done opp" and thought "damn, he got me" or even worse . And I swore that the next time I will play like "dogmeat" or the wellknown clubcucumbers because too much thinking took me to hell. So my question to you experts is: do you also run into the knife or do you have so much tablepresence that you smell a rat? Knowing a lot about right falsecarding provides losing the postmortem but the feeling is always bad, right?
TY! Caren (yes, a female...)

[Trpltrbl]

You need tablepresence to find out what is going on. Like what was said in other tread, some people think it is "mandatory" to falsecard on every possible situation. So then we know when we play them they do, but against real experts, they chance their pace, sometimes they do and sometimes they don't, you can't win them all, but good tablepresence and feel will help.

Mike

[Free]

Protecting yourself against falsecarding is very difficult. Against someone who always falsecards, you can do something! Take this example:

Dealer: ????? Vul: ???? Scoring: Unknown

♠ KQ ♥ ♦ ♣ ♠ AJT ♥ ♦ ♣

if your opponent plays the K in EVERY situation (you try the finesse), you don't know if you have to finesse a second time. But if he somehow takes your J with the Q, you'll know he hasn't got the K, otherwise he'd taken that.

So, randomizing the falsecards makes it impossible to know. If you finesse the J and your opponent plays sometimes the K, and sometimes the Q, you can NEVER make anything out of his card.

In other words: you need some feeling, table presence, call it what you want, to know what to play in certain occasions.

[EricK]

Free, on Feb 25 2004, 03:22 PM, said:

Protecting yourself against falsecarding is very difficult.  Against someone who always falsecards, you can do something!  Take this example:

Dealer: ????? Vul: ???? Scoring: Unknown

♠ KQ ♥   ♦   ♣   ♠ AJT ♥   ♦   ♣

if your opponent plays the K in EVERY situation (you try the finesse), you don't know if you have to finesse a second time.  But if he somehow takes your J with the Q, you'll know he hasn't got the K, otherwise he'd taken that.

So, randomizing the falsecards makes it impossible to know.  If you finesse the J and your opponent plays sometimes the K, and sometimes the Q, you can NEVER make anything out of his card.

In other words: you need some feeling, table presence, call it what you want, to know what to play in certain occasions.

On this point, it is handy to remember that a certain farily low level, people do practically always falsecard in these situations, and expect their opponents to do likewise.

I remember once playing against just such a pair. I won the first finesse with the lower honour, and declarer was really surprised to see me win the second finesse as well.

"That was really sneaky!" she said.

Eric

[mishovnbg]

Spoiler

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Hi Caren!
Best way to protect youself is to play statisticaly and if possible to count HCP and distribution. For example do double finesse despite by Q or K you lose first time - random falshe carding is equival to no falshe carding . If high card fall, like 9 or 10, think about it in light of restricted choice - singleton or 109... Also don't play against wild distributions like 5-1 or 4-0 breaks, if no any info about like bidding. Look your own distribution - if you have singleton/void, practically opps have too most of time. If only falshe cards will remain your problem, you will win most of tournaments .

Spoiler

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Have a nice Bridge Caren...

Spoiler

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Misho

[inquiry]

Weapons against false-cards...

When declarer plays cards in a tricky order (really, is this a false-card), the weapon of choice are defense signals (count, suit preference, etc). Let's take Free's false-card example from the other thread (I show WEST hand)....

---

In Free's premise, you (south) know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the ♦K is with east. His idea was cash the ♦A and lead low, thinking EAST will duck. But here, EAST will have 1) gotten a count signal from WEST on Diamonds, and matter of fact, probably already has the 4 card ending counted out. So this "falsecard" is the only chance for an extra trick, EAST would have to either be asleep or have a partner who false=card him and gave him the wrong count somewhere.

But really, there is no official counter to a falsecard when they are done right. The best falsecard generally gives you an option of two plays where the lack of a falsecard would not. Dropping the NINE on the first round of a suit where you have J9xx to give declarer an option of ways to play for a 4-1 split is a case in point. IF you don't drop the nine, he will have to play the hand the suit so that the hand with the TEN would behind the four card suit without the nine being dropped.

The people to take advantage of is the ones who never false-card, or who always play the same card. Imagine this situation where a player holding QJ always plays QUEEN first when you cash the KING...

---

If they play the JACK, you are certain to win if you finessee because you know their behavior. Imagine a situation where you are in a trump suit with a singleton in dummy. IF when you lead the low card from dummy, and the RHO is known to always play the ACE in that situation, what do you play from a holding of KJx if he plays low? What if half the time he jumps up with ACE and half he plays low? These situations are similar to dealing with normal falsecards. If a player is known to falsecard, maybe you need to think about what has gone on before the play you suspect and if there is any evidence you have overlooked that might lead you strongly suspect the play is or is not a falsecard. But that is the best that the falsecarder can hope for, to give you a potential losing option and a nudge towards it.

[WGF_Flame]

There are two ways to handle falsecarding, the first one is to have a feeling, meaning u r better then ur opponents in this game of pocker.
the second is just the opposite, forget about any feeling and play the precentage play, on the two examples above my post, on the first one, i dont care if he puts the Q or the K on the first time, and dont care what face he does when playing it , i will play the precentage.
on the second example as the defender , i will not assume that declerer doesnt has the J of dimond, i will just analyse what is better statistically, his hving J or is having a singelton and play accordingly.
I'm sure there are great players who can read faces but i cant so i usually try the second way.

[luis]

My way is: go with the percetages but from time to time do something anti-percentae if you feel it is right (even if it may not work).
Your pd won't be worried to play with a psycho and your opponents will be aware that you can't be fooled in every hand.
And all in average your results will be normal :-)

[42]

Thanks for your replies! It seems to be a big advantage to know the opponents. One of my students always falsecards by refusing to play highest from a sequence: she does not want opps to know her holding. That is the same lady who normally underleads her ace against trumpcontracts And beware of playing against me in real life. I look innocent but...
Have a nice day!
Caren

[inquiry]

Let me add another falsecarding/defense against falsecarding scenareo. You hold...

---

The "textbook" pla is low from south to the NINE. If WEST has KTx or QTx you win four tricks in this suit. Against "average" players this works just fine. But against a player who has studied standard card positions and appreciate that the standard play is low to the NINE, when they hold KTx what will they play? Yes, they will play the K (or with QTx the Queen). And what do these same people do with the KQx? Why they play low, since they know that you know the standard play is the 9.

So how do you play against the average person when you play low towards north and west plays low? Insert the NINE. How do you play against a good player who knows the standard position and is fond of the "falsecard" when you play low and they play the King? You win the first round round, and lead back and play the NINE on the next round. And against this same player, if you lead low and they play low, you would finessee the jack and not play the Nine on the first round.

Now, how would you play against a player like LUIS on this hand, assuming Luis respects your ability as a declearer? Some times Luis will play the K from KTx and sometimes he will play low. From KQx he will sometimes he will K or Q and sometimes play low. The point being here, by his mixing up the cards you can't draw a bead on the right line based upon his play.

I much rather be playing against a beginner or a psuedo expert when I play this combination rather than against a person who understands the need for diversity in carding choices. The beginner always plays low from KTx and high from KQx, the psuedo-expert always plays high from KTx or QTx and low from KQx. So I can use the percentage play against the beginner and the psuedo-experts own tendencies against him in the second case. But in this situation against a real expert, you will have no such tendencies to draw upon and the play get turned inside-out a fair amount of the time as you both bluff and counter bluff. And that makes for exciting and challenging bridge.

Ben