Taking a successful finesse makes you feel like you have conjured an extra trick out of thin air - it’s great - and opportunities to try it crop up all the time in card play. Watch the video to find out how it works, then try a few in the practice hands. We will make sure most of them work for you.
Which opponent would Hermia prefer to hold the king of hearts?
If Helena holds the king (it is onside), Hermia can make an extra trick as long as she plays correctly. If Demetrius holds the king (it is offside) she cannot make the extra trick because he plays after the dummy, so he will use his king to beat the queen whenever it is played.
How should Hermia play the first round of hearts?
The important honour card that Hermia is missing is the king. If this card is in Helena's hand, Hermia does not need to lose a trick to it. She should lead a small card from her hand and if Helena also plays small, then Hermia should call for the queen (or jack - they are equivalent) from dummy. On the 50% of occasions when the missing king is with Helena, the queen will win the trick, after which Hermia should get the lead back in her hand and lead another small card towards the dummy, playing the second honour. On either round, if Helena plays the king, it should be beaten by dummy's ace.
How should Hermia play the heart suit here?
The missing honour here is the queen, and Hermia plans to take a finesse against that card, hoping that it is in Helena's hand, where it can be trapped by the honours in dummy. However, the ace in her hand can't be used for finessing, as the next lowest card there can be beaten by the opponents' intermediate cards (the nine or ten, would force her ace to win). She has no finesse position in her own hand but she will still have a finesse position in the dummy after playing the ace. In this situation, she should win a trick with the ace first, in case the queen is singleton and it will show up on the first round, solving her problem. If Demetrius held the singleton queen she would lose a trick to it unnecessarily by taking the finesse on the first round. If Helena plays the queen at any point, Hermia should use dummy's king to beat it.
Here, Hermia is planning to take a finesse against the missing queen. In what order should she do things?
This is a similar situation to question 3. Hermia can win one round in the suit without affecting her ability to take the finesse. So again in case the queen is singleton, she should win one of the top two honours that are in the dummy, then return to her hand and take the finesse against the queen on the second round.
How should Hermia play hearts here, where she is missing not just one, but two honour cards?
When you are missing two honour cards, but hold the card above them and the other cards below them, you can take two finesses by leading small cards twice towards the top card. So here, where Hermia is missing the king and queen, she should start by leading a small card from her hand and play the jack (or ten or nine - all the same effect) from dummy, if Helena follows small on the first round. When you are missing two honours, it is more likely that there is one in each of the defenders' hands, than that they are both in the same hand. So Hermia expects the first finesse to lose to either the king or queen in Demetrius's hand. However, if the honours are split, she can trap the second one by coming back to her hand and doing the same thing again. If she plays the ace without using it to trap either honour, she will probably lose two tricks rather than one.
These links will take you to Bridge Training, where you can have a go at playing some hands to practice this principle of card play. You won’t need to bid – the trick target and trump suit/NT are displayed in the top left corner, so just have a go and see how many tricks you can make.
