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There are many good plays available to every bridge player. You may not understand three-suit squeezes, Deschapelles coups and the like, but if you ever play bridge at all you will understand what a finesse is.
You don’t need to take finesses but they bring in a lot of tricks as the years slide by. However, there is one kind of finesse to avoid. We call this play the practice finesse because it is a finesse that may cost you a trick and can’t do you the least bit of good.
Steve Brody was the first man to jump off the Brooklyn Bridge and live. He took a chance. Don’t be a Steve Brody at the bridge table.
If South is in a finessing mood he can play dummy’s 10 of spades at trick one. The finesse will work but its success won’t help South. In fact it will cost him his con-tract. The best he can do after that successful finesse will be to gather in three spades, two hearts, two dia-monds and one club, provided West is unkind enough to refuse to win the first club trick. South will wind up with a lot of good clubs in his own hand with no way to reach them.
Now see what happens if South goes right up with dummy’s ace of spades. He will lead a club at trick two and continue with clubs until West takes his ace. West will probably shift to a heart. South will win in dummy and lead a spade to his queen-jack. West can take his king of spades but South will wind up with four clubs and two tricks in each other suit for a nice total of 10.
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