Finesse! Finesse! Finesse! II


K J 10 6
A Q 4 3
5 3 2
K 9
Q 9 8 4 7 5 3
J 7 6 2 K 9 5
J 7 Q 9 8 6 4
6 4 2 J 8
A 2
10 8
A K 10 Opening lead: 2 of hearts
A Q 10 8 7 3 Contract: 6 no trump Vul-E-W

I hadn't intended to make this a two-part series, but partly because it came to seem overlong for one day and partly from coming across this hand before I had finished, I thought I'd cut the discussion off and revisit it today. Only one declarer went down in 6 no on this hand, and when I looked at it I said there was only one way you could go down in this hand with 11 top winners and that was to decline the spade finesse, and sure 'nuff, that's what happened.
Opening lead was a heart, as given, declarer finessing the queen into the king, and a heart return now made declarer wide open in hearts. But what of that? You can run 10 top winners before taking the spade hook, so at worst you're going down 2, a paltry 50 points more for giving yourself a reasonable chance to pick up a thousand. In the long run, taking a chance on those odds has gotta pay 20 times over. You don't enter the bidding and get up to slam to go down one, do you?
Well, this declarer substantially did. After taking his ace of hearts, he simply ran off his 11 top winners, 6 clubs first, then the top two spades and then the diamonds. C'mon, lady. You aren't going to drop that queen of spades. Well, okay, you'll do so on occasion, but there isn't any likelihood that you'll drop it with 7 spades outstanding, not near the chance you give yourself on the finesse. You've got to take your simple finesse and stay with the field.
I have a suspicion that she felt maybe someone would discard poorly if she ran enough winners, for I've seen it before. But no one discarded poorly, and she effected her own demise by failing to take a simple finesse for a 12th trick.
Then I noted that five people in 3 no without a heart lead made only 11 tricks! Wait a minute, now. On any lead but a heart, you've got every suit stopped, and even a losing spade hook would give you a 12th winner. So why would anyone go to the heart finesse where you don't develop a winner on a losing finesse?
Indeed, I'd like to return to the heart lead against the slam bid. Declarer might have thought of ducking the lead, substantially finessing against the jack. It's a legitimate play that here would have drawn the king or produced a winning trick, in any event establishing the 12th trick. If it lost to the jack, that's not the setting trick, and now declarer has a choice of finesses for a 12th trick: either the heart against the king, or the spade against the queen. So in essence, this declarer had three finesses at her disposal and chose to employ only the one that wouldn't work.
Two choices were available to those who didn't get a heart lead. But you've got to see that one is far superior to the other, for it develops a trick even if it loses whereas the other doesn't. So in addition to finessing, you've got to note which finesses will be of most help to you even if losing, and which would be dangerous, if losing, which not.

Eight ever, nine never Eight ever, nine never? No, of course not on an inflexible, never-to-be-deviated from basis. There'll be times when your common sense tells you this maxim can't be followed, as in this holding:
K J 8 7 6 5
. . . . .
A 9 3

You lay down the ace, and now if you have no outside entries, you will naturally finesse the jack if you don't see the queen to assure yourself of an entry to run the suit even if the finesse loses. The same holds, even with an outside entry, if you can't bear to have your LHO on lead, but can live with your RHO on lead. What if you can't stand to have your RHO on lead? Then you would go up with the preclude to preclude that (if your LHO followed), and knock out West's queen if East shows out, being ready to run the suit through your outside entry. And if you don't have an outside entry and cannot stand to have your RHO on lead? Then I guess you'd have to go for the drop.
In any event, we do recognize that there will be exceptions to this "rule", just as there are to any. But having said that, I'll say you could do worse than to follow this maxim. You could do a lot worse. You'll probably be right more often than going against the principle, and have a respectable line of play to offer your partner when the cards go against you.
Incidentally, the reference is to picking up the queen. With 8 cards, you take a finesse if one is available, with 9, you go for the drop. I offer this to avoid any ambiguity, for I have heard a number of war stories on this matter, including one where a woman allegedly thought it was the holding of the 8-spot that determined your decision. Apochryphal? I dunno.

Lastly, I'd like to point out that a losing finesse is not always harmful to your interests, especially in duplicate. Fr'instance, there may be times when a winning finesse means you're underbid and will lose to everyone in slam. But a losing finesse means your bid is just fine and you'll beat everyone in slam. Also, a losing finesse may establish another winner for your stash. Such would have been the spade suit above, had the finesse lost while the hearts were still guarded. So there was no reason to attack hearts before spades.
Also, it may not matter a whole lot whether the finesse loses or wins. Take the diamond holding given yesterday:
A J 5
......
Q 7

And lemme say I have a guarded club loser, with the ace of clubs in dummy. I lead the queen of diamonds, and it doesn't matter whether it is covered or not. If so, I lose no diamonds but lose a club. If it goes to East's king, I lose a diamond but no clubs. Sometimes you may even get a defender who can't bear to sacrifice his king for the common good and you wind up with three diamond winners. But beware if you have no outside entries to the suit!
You lead the queen and it holds! If you now finesse the jack, you may find a wily East pounces on it, and instead of 3 diamond winners, you have one. If the queen holds, you'll have to decide on how badly you need three diamond winners here, along with asking whether it's likelier that West is inept or East wily. For my money, unless 3 diamond winners would make the contract, in which case I might go for having been granted a gift by an inept defender at the risk of going down two, I'd decline the finesse now and nail my contract. If it turns out that I could have made an overtrick, my partner will doubtless want to point this out to me, on the presumption that I'd been too obtuse to notice where the king was on later play, but I would feel comfortable that I'd done right.
Happy finessing!