Morton's Fork by Foxymoron

Under Henry VII, John Morton was made Lord Chancellor in 1487, with fiscal responsibility. He rationalised a flat tax by reasoning that someone living modestly must be saving money, and therefore could afford the tax; whereas someone living extravagantly was obviously rich, and therefore could afford the tax as well.

The term has found its way into bridge. Usually a defender has a choice between winning an ace, when declarer will make two tricks in the suit, or ducking when the declarer only makes one trick, but the defender never makes his ace. An example was on this hand below:

Keith Nash and Simon Few had a good win in the weekly duplicate, helped significantly by this board. North might decide to play for penalties at these colours, but there would be no guarantee that South would reopen with a double.

East, Judy Bourne, led her partner's suit with the eight of spades and Keith ducked this and won the second high spade with the ace. Now he led a heart and East won, perforce, and exited with a club. Now Keith won in North and led a second heart.  If East ducks, declarer can establish his tenth trick in spades. If East wins, declarer has two heart tricks and can squeeze West in spades and diamonds to also make ten tricks. So East has been a victim of the dreaded Morton's Fork. Having missed out on 500, Nash and Few emerged with a good score from +430. 

At another table, the Robot recovered quite well after misunderstanding the auction:

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West's opening bid of 2D was a multi, always a good choice against a Robot, as they assume it is a weak 2D which most Robots play, even though West alerted and explained it correctly. North's Double was takeout of diamonds, not my choice, and East's 2S was pass or correct. Now South could have had a joint top with a takeout double, which North will pass in his sleep, or should I say "in its shutdown".

In the play, Robot ducked two spades, not realising they were 6-1, and then it played hearts up twice. East ducked the second one, but now the Robot cashed all its clubs and then played the ace and jack of diamonds. It did not matter who had the queen of diamonds, as that player would have been caught in a double squeeze. It won with the king and the queen dropped from West. For an average plus. Computers don't know about Morton's Forks yet!