[lamford]

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I watched precisely one hand on Vugraph today. It was in the third match of the teams in Pula. North-South were Michael Botur and Alexander Budaev and North corrected the cold 6NT to the no-play 7S, but what happened next would make Question of Sport. West, Jon Vaage, led a club and Budaev played the ace and led the king of spades, but Tor Helness false-carded with the seven. When his partner played the singleton eight he had to dash to the mens' room but when he returned his queen of spades was picked up for -2210. The most expensive false-card ever?

[The_Badger]

Thanks for posting. It's reassuring to know that even great players make expensive errors sometimes.

Btw, what's the point of trying to false card here? East can see ♥s are breaking, and two of dummy's entries, the ♣A and ♠K have disappeared. And partner can't have anything to help on the bidding.

I can only assume it was a total lapse in concentration.

[Cyberyeti]

I've seen true count cards cost like this frequently usually high from doubleton disposing of partner's stop.

The most spectacularly unfortunate costly card I've ever seen was declaring 4♥ I got the lead of 10♥ and saw QJ743 on the table, A52 in hand, thought for a while, small KA and picked the suit up without loss. For that to cost from 10986 is really unlucky, althought a high one never gains if declarer reads correctly.

[lamford]

One spectacularly (un)successful one of mine was declarer playing 97xxx opposite AJ8xx playing the nine from hand, and the next hand with KT doubleton playing the king!

[Cyberyeti]

 lamford, on 2017-September-05, 15:21, said:

One spectacularly (un)successful one of mine was declarer playing 97xxx opposite AJ8xx playing the nine from hand, and the next hand with KT doubleton playing the king!

I played a set of 8 boards where the opps managed to crash ♠AK 3 times in defence in 8 boards, 2 were idiotic, one I have a lot of sympathy with.

Worst bit of idiocy:

3♠-X-4♠-X

you decide to lead a trump from Kx, which one do you lead ? obviously you lead the x, stiff A or Q must be plausible, but did it deserve partner overtaking and shooting a small one back ?

[apollo1201]

 Cyberyeti, on 2017-September-05, 15:33, said:

Worst bit of idiocy:

3♠-X-4♠-X

you decide to lead a trump from Kx, which one do you lead ? obviously you lead the x, stiff A or Q must be plausible, but did it deserve partner overtaking and shooting a small one back ?

Funny story that reminds me of a doomed 4S made despite having Txx in dummy facing xx on the suit led, plus two other losers. Lead of K overtaken by the A, continuation of J for the Q, then small to dummy's 10 and RHO follows with a small pip!