BRIDGE

Ah, finesses! We love them, we hate them but one thing for sure we need to realize: not all possible finesses are created equal even when they are for a card of identical rank.

Like in this three notrump contract faced by Calgarian Nick Gartaganis during a Canadian Bridge Federation National Senior Teams Championship semi-final match.

After West’s fourth-best spade lead was scooped up by declarer’s King, South had the option of trying either a club finesse or a heart finesse in order to get to his required total of nine tricks.

Both suits: seven cards long and missing the King and with enough intermediate cards to make continued finesses feasible so was it a tossup which to try?

Not really and as you’ll see, Nick picked the “right” finesse when he played King and a diamond to dummy’s ace for heart leads through East.

Now a cynic might say of course you try the finesse that’s destined to succeed but there was a solid reason for picking hearts over clubs as the suit to attack once in dummy.

For sure, the relevant Kings might have been in either hand but because the heart ace was in a fourcard holding, there was the potential for picking up an onside King hypothetically accompanied by three or more companions where that same potential wasn’t possible with the club suit.

And one last point of expert technique: Nick clicked on the heart nine for his first lead of the suit so that it would be possible to lead the suit three times from dummy should that prove necessary.