Finesse! Finesse! Finesse!


A J 6 5
K 10 5 2
7
A K 8 3
K 10 9 3 7 4
8 7
K Q 10 8 5 A J 6 5 4
10 4 2 Q 9 7 6 5
Q 8 2
A Q J 9 6 4 3
9 2 Opening lead: K of diamonds
J Contract: 6 hearts

Finesses are magic -- when they work. Lookee here:

A Q 10
K J 7 4 9 5 2
8 6 3

I'm going to win the first round of this suit with the fifth highest card in the deck, and I'm going to do it while the opponents have two cards higher than the one I play, and there won't be anything they can do about it. You've got to make yourself available for this magic if you want to be competitive. At the same time, though not all losing finesses are harmful, I would be the first to acknowledge that when a finesse is at the make or break point, if a losing finesse would mean the setting trick, they are deadly. You are so helpless. You make your play third hand (or maybe second if an opponent leads the suit) and it's out of your hands whether it holds or not. So as much as I've been beating the drum about taking finesses, I would want to look for any alternative means for a winner, particularly if I can test possibilities sequentially before I'd resort to that finesse.
In the last month or two, I must have had at least 10 hands that depended on a simple finesse to make, or less often, keeping away from an unnecessary finesse. Now in consecutive days, I had one case of each -- a finesse foolishly taken, and a finesse foolishly declined -- and so decided to explore the topic a little.
How do we know when to finesse and when not to? Of course bridge doesn't allow for easy generalizations one can follow to a winning game. Each situation has to be weighed at the moment of decision, so it would take an intrepid soul to generalize about when they should and should not be taken, but I'm going to do just that. You've got to take your natural finesses when you need them for your contract, and that's regardless of who initiates the suit. As for finesses not needed, well, you'll probably want to take them also if you can do so safely and conveniently. But if a finesse not needed would be devastating if off, then you'd better think about foregoing it.
That's not to say this will always be crystal-clear. I can recall the hand of a couple of months ago where declarer had a five-card heart suit headed by the A K in dummy, opposite a Q doubleton, and the A Q of clubs also in dummy opposite three small -- and no other entries to dummy when trump are all drawn. Now it's obvious that an opening club lead would have put declarer to the test: bank on that club hook, or on 3-3 hearts? Actually, neither would have worked. But without that club lead, declarer could run three rounds of hearts, sluffing a club, ruff a heart on the 4-2 break, and now with the ace of clubs, sluff another club on the 5th heart.
Yesterday several declarers finessed second round into the 10 of diamonds, while the K Q would have dropped that sucker. I regarded it as a misunderstanding of the Law of Restricted Choice. On the hand above, I wondered why a sprinkling of declarers went down in 6 hearts when the spade hook is on, and of course the answer was that they had eschewed the spade hook, presumably, I rather suspect, because the suit was led by an opponent!
Now there are several things about this very, very common practice in declining a very, very natural finesse because an opponent has led the suit. First, what are you going to do about the second round of spades if you decline the finesse? C'mon. You have no way of avoiding that second round through diamonds. You have no way of doing so through clubs. Oh, hold on. Suppose a defender has Q 10 9 in clubs. Ah, sonuvagun. That would establish the 8, now wouldn't it? And of course an expert would keep an eye out for the drop of those cards on three rounds of clubs, though not, I'll warrant ye to the point of banking on such a windfall over a simple 50-50 finesse. And, to be sure, dropping a stiff king of spades would also make you a hero, and by golly, if you play enough bridge, by the time you're 90 you just may drop a stiff king in similar circumstances. Or even two.
So if there was any layout that called for taking that finesse, that was it. You simply give up on slam in declining that finesse. You've got to lose the second round of spades in addition to a diamond. So why invite defeat rather than giving yourself a chance for success? Further, don't forget the nature of duplicate bridge. If the king of spades is off for you, it's off for everybody, and you can take some comfort in knowing you'll have company and only the wimps in game will beat you. But if it's on, it's on for everybody -- except those who decline the finesse, and there you won't have so much company.
Don't let the defense determine whether you take a finesse or not! There are two ways declarers mark themselves for, well, novices (whatever their self-ranking) in declining finesses. One is, as above, declining a natural finesse because an opponent has led the suit. I see this all the time. True, I don't really know a declarer's thinking. But I've gotta believe that if this declarer had gotten any other lead at trick two, he would have drawn trump, ruffed a diamond, cashed a couple of clubs, sluffing a spade, ruffed a club and then would have seen that only the spade hook remained to offer him a chance for his slam. And I've seen others of a like nature, a very, very natural finesse declined, not because the finesse would represent any more danger from the suit's being initiated by an opponent than it would if declarer initiated it but because, it would seem, the declarer figures this guy wouldn't lead from a king would he?
You've got to bear in mind a couple of things: one is that after the opening lead and dummy comes down, the defense, or at least one defender, will have a better idea than you do as to whether a finesse will work or not. And no doubt they'll often initiate that suit simply because some declarers will thereby be faked out of taking the hook. Also, you might bear in mind that oftentimes defenders don't have a safe out, or think they don't have a safe out and simply take the one they think least likely to cost a trick.
Yes, there'll doubtless be times especially in a trump contract, where you might be able to spare the trick you'd have liked to finesse for later but can't afford to lose the finesse and get a ruff right back, and these must be weighed. But the above was not such a case, since this declarer has no way of later avoiding the second round of spades and so should have taken the spade hook even if the spade lead came from an opponent.
And the second way declarers let the defense determine their decision is to forego a finesse because an honor isn't covered. Here is a case I remember fondly:
A 8 7 5
K 9 6 3 ------
Q J 10 4 2

No, I don't remember the spots under the 9, but they are unimportant. It was the heart suit, though, and the contract was six hearts. Declarer led the queen of hearts, and not seeing a cover, went up with the ace and ka-boom. Now he can't make it. Declarer could have done anything else. Push the queen through, or lead a low heart to the ace and back and he would have picked up the king or 9, depending on which way he went. But he found the one line that allowed the defense two tricks.
No, again, I don't always know declarer's frame of mind. Maybe in some cases they had decided against the finesse ahead of time and only hoped to get a cover. Here is a situation I was facing some months back:
A J 5
......
Q 7

I had 8 tricks in a three no contract and my RHO had some dangerous tickets, and I wasn't about to endanger the contract. Still, I led the queen, hoping for a foolish cover, for I have seen more than a few. It wasn't to be, my LHO didn't even have the king, so I'll never know if he would have covered, but I went up with the ace and it was fortunate I did. But I think the heart slam above is unambiguous. If declarer had wanted to get as many trump as possible out quickly for fear of a ruff, he can lead low to the ace and back. The lead of the queen, however, clearly looks for a cover, and not getting, he wrongly decided the king wasn't on his left. But what if the king is on his right? What's he going for, an overtrick? An overtrick that would have been possible (on that play) only on a stiff king to his right!
Other cases may not be quite so unambiguous but there are many that are pretty close to it. Here, again, much as with an opponent leading a suit you'd later have taken a finesse in, you've got to bear in mind a couple of factors. First, there are a lot of reasons for not covering an honor. And your opponent may think he's into one. Which brings me to a second reason for not abandoning a finesse simply because an honor isn't covered: There are some anal retentives who don't cover even when it would be a proper thing to do.
So I would strongly, strongly, advise the reader: Don't let the opponents have any input as to whether you take that finesse or not. Yes, sometimes an opponent will necessarily have some input by leading a suit before you wanted to see it led. And you must might decide it would be ill-advised to take it. We'll have to make an exception of that. But aside from that, you decide if the finesse is necessary. You decide and you take the finesses, your natural finesses that you can be sure the field will be taking.
Continued tomorrow.