Simple Counting (& Finesse)


Q 10
A K Q 10 9
K Q 7
A 5 4
9 6 5 4 2 K J
J 7 6 5 4 3 2
9 5 J 4 2
J 10 K 8 7 3 2
A 8 7 3
8 Contract: 6 no trump
A 10 8 6 3
Q 9 6 Opening lead: J of clubs, 4 of spds
Declarer ducked the club lead to East's K, and won the continuation with the Q in dummy. So it's time to count winners. If diamonds behave, declarer has 5 diamonds, two clubs, three hearts and a spade for 11. And the likeliest path to a 12th winner is a simple finesse in hearts. Oh, you might bang down the A of spades first, looking for an improbable stiff K, figuring that if it costs an extra undertrick, minus 100 instead of minus 50, that's a small price to pay for that unlikely chance.
However, whether tried or not, there's only going to be one spade winner. So now declarer's only chance is that heart hook. Oh, might the J not drop on three leads? Indeed, they might, just as the K of spades might've been stiff. Indeed, we've gotta take a second look at that possibility and come up with: the simple odds of the J dropping vs. a simple 50% finesse and find that the the J -- or any specific card -- is likelier to lie with the four-card holding than with the three. (We don't know yet that the hearts are splitting 4-3, but if they're 5-2 or 6-1, the odds are even more skewed toward the J lying in the long holding.)
Ergo, do we try the finesse and become a hero to our partner? Or not? This declarer did not. After winning the lead at trick 2, he cashed three rounds of diamonds, then three rounds of hearts, then a non-finesse of the Q of spades, covered by East, then cashed two more diamond winners, then the A of clubs, trick 13 consisting of conceding the setting trick of the 10 of hearts going to the J.
One wonders if declaarer was intending to push the Q of spades through if uncovered and why he would wipe out his finessing potential in hearts only to threaten with a non-finesse in spades.
The other declarer, getting a spade lead, wound up even worse (down 2) in this makable slam. He ducked the J of spades, East then continuing the suit with the K of spades, won by declarer who promptly wiped out his chance of making by leading to the A of hearts, apparently before he'd stop to think how he just might pull this baby home.
My first thought (on seeing that he was down two) was that he wasn't granted a second club winner on the opening lead as the first declarer was. But at a second look, it becomes apparent that declarer could run five heart winners on the finesse for five in each red suit, one in each black. So he had the same chance as the first declarer and merely wiped it out a little sooner.
After cashing three heart winners, declarer came to his diamonds, running five of them, followed by a spade to West's 9, and J of hearts. Down 2.
Why after that daring bidding do two declarers turn into milquetoasts and invite their defeat by fear of a simple finesse? I guess we'll never know.