The wheel turns full circle

Bridge

No joke — sometimes, readers of bridge columns must think that a finesse is never going to win, that the odds of success are much nearer 5% than 50%. But occasionally the deal deviser will be a nice guy and put in a winning finesse — though usually only when it is needed for the contract.

In today’s deal, South is in three no-trump. West leads the club five, declarer plays low from the board, and East wins with the king. At trick two, East shifts to the heart two. How should South continue?

After the lead, declarer has seven top tricks: two spades, two hearts, one diamond and two clubs. Even if the diamonds break 3-3, he will still need a third spade trick. It is better to assume that East holds the spade queen. However, South might need to take two spade finesses, which requires two dummy entries. Those gateways will have to be the club ace and club 10, which declarer must realize before he plays to trick one.

If West is an expert, South must drop his club queen under East’s king. Then, declarer wins trick two with the heart ace, cashes the spade ace and leads a low club to dummy’s 10. It wins. Next, South plays a spade to his jack. Surprise, surprise: It wins too. Declarer goes back to the board with another club, repeats the spade finesse and claims.

Note what happens if declarer doesn’t unblock the club queen at trick one. When he leads his remaining low club toward the dummy, West will put in the jack. From trick one, he knows South has the queen and will see the necessity for an entry-killing play.