Ins and outs of another maxim

Jeff Valdez, a studio executive who is credited with creating the television category of Latino Programming in English, said, “Cats are smarter than dogs. You can't get eight cats to pull a sled through snow.”

You might or might not agree with Valdez's opinion about cats. As a bridge player, should you agree with “eight ever, nine never”?

First, to what does that refer? When you are missing only the queen in a suit and have a finessing position with the jack, should you play off the ace and king, hoping to drop the queen, or should you take the finesse?

With eight cards in the suit, you are advised to finesse — “eight ever.” With nine cards, play for the drop — “nine never.”

Let's start with the eight trumps in today's deal. How should South play in four spades after West leads the heart king?

Here three no-trump would have been easier, but that was hard for North to anticipate.

South starts with three sidesuit losers: two hearts and one diamond. So, he cannot afford a trump loser. Assuming the contract is makable, should declarer bash out the ace and king, assuming East has a doubleton queen, or cash the ace, then play low to the jack, hoping West has queen-third?

Let's ask the mathematicians. A priori, West will have Q-x-x 30.0 percent of the time, and East will have Q-x only 20.0 percent of the time. So the odds heavily favor finessing on the second round.

Alternatively, consider those five East-West spades. Is the queen more likely to be in the group of three or the group of two? By 3-to-2, in the larger pile.