The Cardturner (7 page)

Suppose Gloria is dummy, and has both the ace and queen of spades. (We won't worry about her other cards.)

Trapp would like to win two spade tricks. The ace will win one, of course, but he also would like to win a trick with the queen. But how can he do that? One of the defenders still has the king of spades.

The answer lies in a play known as a
finesse
. It will only work if the West hand is the one with the king.

Trapp will lead the
2. Let's say West plays the
5. Then Trapp will tell dummy to play the
Q, which will win the trick. If instead West plays the
K, Trapp will play the
A from dummy, and then win the next trick with the
Q. No matter which card West plays, he's screwed.

"That's so cool!" Leslie said when I showed this to her.

I thought it was cool too.

It only worked because West had the
K. If East had the king, then she'd be able to win a trick with it. A finesse gives you a 50 percent chance.

Once I understood it, I noticed finesses popping up a lot.

This time Trapp hopes that East has the
K. If so, he can finesse it by leading the eight from dummy. If East plays the king, Trapp plays the ace. If East doesn't play the king, Trapp plays the queen.

You can also finesse queens.

Gloria leads the
4, and hopes that East has the
Q. If East plays a small club, Gloria can win the trick with dummy's jack.