Posted 2025-June-13, 08:06
David has it right.
Technically there is a spade finesse here but it’s not one that you’d try nor is it one that can help. The usual finesse is something like xx opposite AQJx where one leads towards the AQJx hoping the K is n front, so that the Q and Jack win tricks. But leading towards the Jack when holding, say, AKxx opposite Jxx is also a finesse…hoping the player in front of the Jack has something like Qxxx.
Also, technically, you have what is known as a double finesse position in spades.
Jxxx opposite AK9x….you can pick up the suit by leading the Jack if RHO holds the Queen and the 10….he’ll cover the Jack but you go back to dummy and lead low to the 9, finessing against the 10.
Or you could hope the suit splits 10x-Qxx….lead tge Jack, winning the king when it’s covered and then dropping the 10.
However, as with all bridge technique, your play should be guided by mathematics, specifically percentages relating to distribution, influenced by the bidding and any clues from earlier plays.
The percentage play to avoid a spade loser with this combination is to hope for one of two situations, neither of which is likely.
The most probable is to hope either opponent has Qx or Q10….the AK will drop the Queen and the Jack will pull the last trump.
3-2 break is 68.5%. Any bridge player needs to memorize the most common percentages. When a suit breaks 3-2, the odds of any particular card being in the doubleton hand is 2/5 or 40%.
The other, much less common, good holding is the stiff Queen sitting behind the AK. When the Queen drops at trick one, lead to the Jack and finesse RHO’s 10…from an original 10xxx.
The odds of this are miniscule, but since you should cash a top spade anyway, it’s sort of a bonus for the best play….playing to drop Qx.
Note that the double finesse against the Q10 is only 25% likely to succeed….the odds of either the Queen or the 10 being onside are 50% and the odds that both are onside is thus 25%.
Since playing for the Queen to drop doubleton, even without the bonus of stiff Queen offside, yields a 40% chance, that’s clearly the right play. So the players who dropped the Queen played the suit correctly.
The fact that you don’t understand these concepts suggests that you very much need to get your hands on a basic book on card play. This is not an intermediate level failing…your card play is very much at the beginner level.
Also, while it’s correct to hope to pitch a diamond on a high club, yiu must surely see that this can’t happen if either top club is taken by the Ace. You need to play for the ace to be in front of the KQxx….and you can score both the K and the Q only by leading towards them twice (once is enough if RHO plays the Ace the first time. Btw, leading towards KQxx here, in the hope of scoring both top cards, is also taking a finesse.
Finally, the reason experienced players upgrade is because they know enough about how to play the cards that on appropriate hands, they can get as many tricks from their hand than they’d expect from a less attractive but slightly stronger (in terms of hcp) hand.
You may want to emulate good players by upgrading but you shouldn’t. You don’t seem to have much clue about proper card play. This means that you simply won’t play your hands well enough that you can bid to contracts with fewer than the ‘normal’ combined values that such a contract requires. Sure, you’ll score the occasional good result due to a very lucky lie of the cards or due to errors by the defence but, in the long run, you’ll be consistently in the bottom half of any matchpoint or Swiss team field.
Nobody was born knowing card play technique. Everyone has had to learn it. Some find it easy, others have to work very hard at it. I’m pretty good…I’ve had some hands written up….but I’m not a natural card player…any edge I have in card play technique is the result of many, many hours of reading, many hours of playing badly, and many hours of watching better players play….and for quite a few years now being lucky enough to play with and against extremely good players.
Until you put in that kind of effort, don’t upgrade many hands.
Of course, on this hand, you had zero business upgrading. Put it this way….i doubt there’s a top player in the world who would upgrade unless, maybe, they were hoping to create a swing….maybe they were behind in a match or needed a top board. Make it AK10x 10x AKx KQ10x and I’d expect the majority of good players to upgrade. Notice how having the black 10s dramatically improves your odds in both black suits. You’ll pick up the spades more than 50% of the time rather than the 40% chance with AK9x as just one factor.
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
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