Have you noticed that finesses are like a red rag to a bull sometimes?
We were defending on this hand. Eszter and I essentially played a fairly passive defence. We could have played it more aggressively, but it wouldn't have made a single bit of difference to the outcome. Declarer here defeated himself, pure and simple:
EW Game, Dealer East (Hands re-arranged as per the posts below)East (Dummy) AJ97
954
K973
32
West (Declarer) KQ842
KQ
AJ
K974
BiddingEast South West NorthNo No 1
2
2
No 4
All Pass
My Partner, who was North, led a small Spade. Declarer drew trumps in rounds, ending in Dummy (Spades were 2-2). Next he Led a Diamond to his Ace and then
ran the Jack of Diamonds, losing to South's Queen.
WHAT??Before you take any finesse you have to think what you can possibly hope to gain from it (win or lose). EW are in the par contract here. Trumps have split and there are only three possible losers for Declarer on this hand (The Ace of Hearts and 2 Clubs if the Club Ace is offside) West can ruff East's red-suit losers and East can ruff West's Club losers. The
only ways you can possibly go
off on this hand it (1) to needlessly draw a 3rd round of trumps, or (2) to lose a Diamond trick.
Aside from the idiotic "chinese" finesse in Diamonds (East will surely cover with
Qx(x) or any number of Diamonds with
Q10x), what West needed to ask himself is this: "Is my position going to
improve if this finesse somehow succeeds?". Of course the answer is no. If the Jack wins and West gets to discard a Club (or a Heart) on the
King, he is
still going to lose 2 Clubs and a Heart. It doesn't even matter if Declarer finesses against South in Diamonds - he's
still going to lose three tricks on this hand because the discard on the
King doesn't gain him anything. It can only
lose if the finesse loses. Even if NS tried to commit suicide and started chucking the
Q and 10 under the A, K and J and West somehow managed to gain
two discards on the Diamonds, he's
still only making 10 tricks, depending on the position of the
Ace.
The whole world, practically, was in 4
making exactly or with an overtrick. This guy and only one other West (who did exactly the same thing, except that that West didn't even play the
Ace first LOL). were the only two going off. North had the
AQ and the
Ace.
Swapping a 100% cold game for a 50% finesse which, even if it wins, doesn't gain you an overtrick and if it loses means you might go off, is pure insanity, yet I see people doing it nearly every day. Finessing is a valuable tactic, but sometimes you need to give yourself a reality check. "Am I actually going to
gain anything if this finesse wins?"