Finesses
Finesses are a basic card-play manoeuvre which fall into the category of positional plays, as your play will always depend on the placement of a particular missing card. Specifically, this is a card where you hold both a higher and lower card in the suit, often in the form of a tenace: two high cards in the same hand which have a gap between them.
As finesses are a type of positional play, the key here is to make sure that you play from the weaker side towards the stronger side. Using this principle, we can give ourselves extra chances for tricks that we would not have otherwise.
What is a finesse?
Finesses come in many forms and there are chances for you to take finesses on almost every bridge hand, so it is important to be able to recognise a finesse position.
When you have a broken sequence of honours in a suit, there will be a chance to take a finesse. Let’s look at the most basic example.
Dummy:
♦ AQ
Hand:
♦ 32
If you play the A♦ first, you will make 1 trick in the suit 100% of the time and 2 tricks <1% of the time (if the K♦ is singleton, giving one opponent 8 cards in the suit! Very unlikely). We need to be leading towards our strength again. See what happens.
Dummy:
♦ AQ
LHO:
♦ KT985
Hand:
♦ 32
Once again, our LHO is stuck: if he plays the K♦, we will win the A♦ and our Q♦ will be a winner; if he plays low, we will play the Q♦ and win the trick. Whatever he does, we will get 2 tricks in the suit, provided that we play the Q♦ and not the A♦ when the 5♦ appears: this is a finesse.
Of course, the layout could be like this:
Dummy:
♦ AQ
LHO: RHO:
♦ J764 ♦ KT985
Hand:
♦ 32
In this case, playing low to the Q♦ will not work, as RHO has the K♦. However, there was a 50% chance that LHO held the K♦ rather than RHO, which is much higher than the <1% we had when we played the A♦ first.
When the missing honour is held by the opponent we hoped would have it, we say that it is onside. If not, it is offside.
Finesses without a tenace
Sometimes, you won’t exactly have a tenace but you will have a sequence of lower honours in one hand, one or two honours that are missing and a higher honour in the other hand. For example:
(2) Dummy:
♦ A2
Hand:
♦ QJ
In this case, you must play one of the honours from your hand and, if LHO plays low, play low from the dummy, hoping that LHO has the K. If LHO plays the K instead, you can win and your J will now be a winner – two tricks if LHO holds the K!
Note that if you need to play an honour to start off the trick, you must hold at least the card below that honour, if not two or more, in order for a successful finesse to be possible. The exact depth of sequence that you need will depend on the length of the suit.
Compare (2) to Example (3).
(3) Dummy:
♦ A2
Hand:
♦ Q3
If you play the Q from hand and LHO holds the K, they can cover your Q in order to thwart you. The trick will go ♦ Q – K – A – low and you will be left with the following cards:
Dummy:
♦ A2
Hand:
♦ Q3
You tried to take a finesse and it was indeed your LHO who held the K… but you still only ended up with one trick in the suit. Your “finesse” was not a finesse after all! With a suit like (3), your best hope for two tricks is to cash the A and hope that one opponent is holding the singleton K, which is sadly unlikely.
Things to remember:
- When you take a finesse, you must play towards the strength. Simply playing the Q from the hand with AQ will prompt the opponents to take the K no matter who has it.
- Taking the finesse doesn’t guarantee you your extra trick: it just gives you a chance you don’t have otherwise.
- If the honour was offside all along, that doesn’t mean it was wrong to take the finesse. Sometimes it can be your only chance to make the contract.
If you are playing up to a tenace, you will always have a finesse available; if you will need to start the trick off by playing an honour, check the depth of your sequence in case you are making a play that will never work.