Contract Bridge

South does it with finesse

Occasionally, declarer knows from the bidding or play that the normal percentage play in a suit cannot succeed, while another approach offers at least some chance of success.

South was confronted by just such a situation in today’s deal, where West’s double of four spades stopped his partner from bidding five hearts, which would have gone down only one. However, we can only report what actually happened, which is that South found himself in four spades doubled.

Two rounds of hearts were led, declarer ruffing the second. The normal play in the trump suit would have been to lead a spade to the king followed by a spade to the jack. But West’s one-trump bid and subsequent double made it clear that this was one finesse that was guaranteed to fail.

South therefore rejected the normal play in favor of one that gave him at least some chance to avoid a trump loser. He had to hope that East was dealt the doubleton ten of spades.

Accordingly, he cashed the ace of spades at trick three and then led the jack. Had West started with the Q-10-x of spades, or with any four spades including the queen, this “backward” approach would have proven fruitless, since West would have been assured of a trump trick come what may.

As it was, though, West was a dead duck. If he covered the jack with the queen, East’s ten would fall under South’s ace when the next spade was led, and dummy’s nine would pick up West’s eight to make the contract. And if West did not play the queen on the jack, South would let the jack ride to achieve the same result.

Since West’s spade holding was rather anemic, he should have passed four spades to give his partner the option of bidding five hearts. He has our gratitude, though, because without him, we’d have had no story to tell.