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The Dreaded Two-Way!

The wrong way and you are down! That two-way finesse. There’s evidence for taking it either way and yet one way is wrong. The only good thing is you do not have to apologize in advance of going down. Save the “sorry, partner” for later: hopefully, it need not be said!

 

 

After your partner opens the bidding, a Weak jump overcall rather gets in your way. Maybe you should. Maybe you shouldn’t but you did! You bid 6NT. You  used Key Card and partner showed two with Q. Hopefully, they have a little bit more.

West leads 5 and partner has a semi-useful “little bit more”. Perhaps the Q next time, please, partner instead of Q..or even as well as! We are just putting off the evil moment. Plan the play.  

If we get the diamond finesse right, we only need lose to the A at trick 13. There is a presumption that we can win 5 heart tricks. So, winning A, we may as well test the heart suit first by playing the top two. All is well as East discards a club on the second round having contributed J on the first round.

Finessing through West?

West saw their partner’s weak jump but led a spade. It could be that they chose a spade because they had no clubs to lead. They could have chosen to lead a diamond to save all your worries. They might be protecting the Q.

The problem is if you are wrong and East turned up with Q, you will be down very quickly..A.

Finessing through East.

If East does have 7 clubs, you are not down if the finesse loses, at least not just yet! Here, the problem is you have 5 heart tricks and 3 spade tricks. If West turned up with Q, the highest number of diamond tricks you could make is 3. Therefore, even if West had no club to lead when winning Q, you would be left to play clubs yourself at trick 13 and be down one.

So, if you cannot find Q, then you are down either way.

Other options

When in doubt, it can pay to run your long suit first. You could run 3 more rounds of hearts but you would have discard two clubs or diamonds in doing so from your hand and neither particularly helps your cause.

So, there is one other often successful approach when in such situations…and that is losing the trick you have to lose…A.

No Finesse…may be best!

We know where A is. East told us. What about playing a low club, from the North hand? If East wins their ace, you have two club tricks and the diamond finesse need not be taken, either way. So, lead a third round of hearts taking the marked finesse and then 4. East must duck to give the defence a chance. If you score K, and then finesse through East, and lose to Q, West will certainly not have a second club to play….contract made, as you will still make 3 diamond tricks (5 hearts, 3 spades, 3 diamonds and a club)

  Alas, all was not what it seems:

 

K was taken by A in West’s hand (that was not in the script!) and West exited another spade. Sometimes, the best plan just does not work. Declarer played KQ with East following to both. East was marked with at least 3 spades, 1 heart and 6 clubs. It was decision time.

At the table, South decided East just might have more than 2 jacks for their very weak jump overcall. So, they crossed to A in dummy, played the two remaining hearts with East and South discarding clubs and took the diamond finesse through East, the winning way.

No apology needed. Indeed, South had done well in leading a club from dummy before playing out the remaining major suit winners. Note that had West led A at trick 1, the contract was cold without the diamond finesse. A triumph for thoughtful play on behalf of South, eventually. Had South led a low club from hand at trick 4, the contract was also cold!

Richard Solomon

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