Three Foolish Reasons
For Declining to Finesse
Below are three reasons why declarers commonly decide they don't wanna take a finesse that the demands of the contract and probability call for. Let me grant at the outset that I don't know anyone's mind but my own and have a bit of a thing about people who presume to speak for another's thought -- not too rarely presuming to tell us what millions of people have in mind. Nevertheless, I think it would be equally foolish to go ZAP to the other extreme and hold that we are completely shut off from the thinking of another human being.
There are times where we might legitimately draw inferences of another person's cast of mind, and indeed, without having remembered the situation, I chanced on an early entry where fathoming declarer's mind-set a slam-dunk. The trump suit looked like this:
|
 A 6 3 2 |
| K 9 5 4 | |
------ |
| Q J 10 8 7 |
And it should be evident that declarer can pick up the trump suit with the loss of only one trick by either starting with a finesse of the Q (then J) toward the A, or if he thinks there's a stiff K with East, by cashing the A and continuing to go low the Q J 10. But one thing declarer cannot afford to do is to spend the Q and the Ace on one trick without picking up the K -- which is what several declarers did. After leading the Q, West ducking, these several declarers jumped up with the A, evidently thinking West would "know enough to cover an honor" and thus couldn't have the K. And thereby they lost two trump tricks and their contract.
Going up wins only on a stiff K with East . . while costing a trick if the king is guarded once, twice or three times. Further since there's always one heart to lose inherent in the cards, costing another trick when West has 4 trump costs the contract by losing two tricks.
To be sure, a single incident, even a slam-dunk, doesn't prove anything about another hand. I grant that. So all references to what a declarer is thinking are on an "it seems to me" basis. The reader is entitled to disagree all he or she wishes to. But here I feel comfortable saying that declarer chickened out of the finesse because his Q was not covered. It's very common, I would say, i.e., declining the finesse when an honor isn't covered, but not a good enough reason to decline the finesse if you feel the finesse is necessary.
Anyway, here are three very common reasons why very obvious finesses, necessary for a good score, are spurned by declarers for a bad score:
An Opponent has led the Suit
An Honor has been led but not covered
Declarer is Scared of Going Down