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Risking all for glory.

“I was unlucky, partner. I took two finesses and both failed. I only needed one to work and I would have made my contract.” A rather familiar cry for sympathy which would certainly initially have been given. Yet, the morning after, the declarer should have realised that their demise was not really because of bad luck but because their line was extremely and unnecessarily risky.

 

1NT was 15-17. South denied holding a major and was soon trying to make 3NT. West led 5. As declarer, you play low from dummy with East contributing the K. Plan the play.

In introducing this deal, I called it a “deal for all levels” that is levels of ability. It was evident that several declarers, though not our declarer above, failed because they did not observe the spade situation at trick 1. All received the same small spade lead to the K but several took the standard approach of ducking the opening lead to cut the opponents’ communication in the suit. They did not realise that by winning the ace that they guaranteed themselves two spade tricks because the J was in dummy and 102 were still in their hand. Ducking is a fine technique but not at the expense of a certain trick. You must assess each situation on its merits.

Thus, these declarers failed in their contract when both red suit finesses failed even though both defenders had four spades. (losing 3 spades and 2 red kings..maybe even a second heart trick.)

That was Level 1. Our declarer fell into Level 2. They won the opening lead but then took the heart finesse. Had it won, fine but it did not. So, East won the K and the defence played two more rounds of spades, declarer winning 10. Watch…

 

They played a heart to the ace and then Q. Another losing finesse with the contract failing when East won 9 and J for five tricks to the defence (2 tricks in each major and K).

Level 3 declarers realised the danger of playing a heart to the ace after they had taken the losing heart finesse. So, after winning the third round of spades, they exited with a small diamond, hoping that if spades were 5-3, the player with three spades held K or that spades were 4-4. As you can see, their wish came true and they made 9 tricks.

One question to them? If they were going to have to duck a diamond, why not do so straightaway? Arguably, if both red suit finesses worked (and a magic lie of the club suit), you could make 12 tricks, a great result when playing Pairs, shooting tops, which is not really what you should do even at Pairs. The overtricks will come when you have secured your contract, maybe not three but still a decent average plus score.

Our Level 4 declarer won the opening lead and at trick 2, led a small diamond away from hand. West won to play K and a second spade. South could not tell whether West had four or five spades and therefore did not risk a possible club finesse at that stage. They cashed four more rounds of diamonds on which West threw two hearts and a club while East threw a heart and a spade. Declarer threw a club and a heart from dummy. A losing heart finesse was followed by a second low club from East, taken by South’s king. Now a heart to dummy’s ace saw the T and J falling and a third round of hearts saw declarer score their overtrick…and an 80% board. They only finesse taken was a losing heart finesse into what almost certainly was the safe hand: in fact, the hand which had already thrown a spade.

Yes, East could daringly have thrown two hearts seeing if South would finesse. A losing finesse would then hold South to 9 tricks. Had West thrown two small clubs and only one heart, again 9 tricks would have been the limit. At no stage was South risking less than 9 tricks. Had they risked the club finesse, they would have scored the overtrick.

Playing Pairs, you will seek your overtricks but only when you have made certain of your contract. Playing Teams, the talk of overtricks is much less relevant. As we saw, several declarers failed when there was an even friendly spade break. There would have been many more casualties had West started with 5 spades and the K. At either version of the game, a diamond at trick 2 must be the winner.

A Lead on Jan’s Day

 

A piece of high-level drama. You made your bid early but it is your choice of opening lead.

Richard Solomon

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