Finalizing Finess Tips

//Finalizing Finess Tips

This month we continue with suggestions on how best to handle finesse situations.

1. When you have to choose which finesse to take between two suits each missing the king, play the ace of the longer suit. If the king does not drop, finesse in the shorter suit (the same technique you use when missing two queens).

2..Say you are missing two kings in finesseable suits, one a singleton facing an ace-queen combination and the other a doubleton facing an ace-queen-jack combination, and you cannot afford to lose a trick. First try to ruff out the king in the singleton suit. If that doesn’t work, take the finesse in the doubleton suit.

Dummy
S 7 6 5
H A Q 6 5
D A Q 8
C 10 9 8
Declarer
S K 4 3
H 3
D 4 2
C A K Q J 7 6 5

Your contract is five clubs and West leads the spade 2. East wins the ace and returns the spade jack. Rather than putting all your eggs in one basket by taking either red suit finesse, give yourself two chances. Play the ace of hearts and ruff a heart. Assuming nothing drastic has happened, return to dummy with a trump and ruff a second heart. If the king fails to appear, take the diamond finesse.

3. Don’t forget about desperation finesses.

Dummy: Q 10

Declarer: A K 3 2

If you need four tricks from a suit like this one, lead low to the 10.

4. The intra finesse is a bit more complicated than most of the others.

North Q 8 2
West J 3
East K 10 7 6 5
South A 9 4

If the bidding has marked East with the king plus length, lead low to the 8. Later lead the queen, hoping to pin the 10 or jack to set up the 9.

North J 9 7 3
West 10 5
East K Q 2
South A 8 6 4

This might be your trump suit in a slam contract. Lead low to the 9. If it drives out an honor, cross to dummy and lead the jack, hoping to blot out West’s doubleton 10.

5. You can pick up oodles of extra tricks by tempting opponents to cover an honor with an honor even though you are not planning to finesse.

North A 4 3
West Q 6
East 8 7 2
South K J 10 9 5

Perhaps it is your intention to play East for the queen. Instead of leading the 5 to the ace and then taking the finesse, lead the jack to the ace. You will be pleasantly surprised to see how often the jack gets covered.

Caution! You must have the necessary missing spot cards to attack with an honor that you are planning to overtake. In this example, you could not afford to lead the jack if you didn’t have the 9. A 4-1 break would do you in.

6. When you have a concealed suit, you can almost bet that when you lead an honor from dummy in that suit, second hand will cover. If second hand does not cover, play fourth hand for the missing honor.

7. When the number of trump tricks you can afford to lose depends on whether a side suit finesse works, take the side suit finesse before tackling the trump suit.

North
S A Q J 3
H 7 4 3
D A 8 6
C K Q 4
West
S
H
D
C
East
S
H
D
C
South
S 4 2
H A Q 10 8 5 2
D K 5
C K 5

Your contract is six hearts. The opening lead is the diamond jack. To know how to play the hearts, you must take the spade finesse first. If the spade finesse loses, you must play the heart suit for no losers by leading low to the queen. If the spade finesse wins, make a safety play in hearts by first cashing the ace. If no honor falls, enter dummy and lead a heart toward your hand.

2017-12-14T16:34:05-08:00By |Categories: Bridge Tips and Tricks|0 Comments

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