The Bucket List

When you are a beginning student of this game, everything is new and it can seem difficult to impose order on all the things that you have to try to remember. There comes a point, when you are an intermediate player, where some level of basic knowledge has been absorbed, and you start to become acquainted with more advanced matters of technique. And somewhere about there, you find that you are reading about a particular type of play and looking for a chance to use it at the table. Probably, the throw-in and the simple squeeze are the simplest “advanced” techniques, and the time when you learn about them is around about the time I mean. If you are a keen student, you may work on a number of techniques before the proper occasion at the table crops up (or is recognized, anyway). And that means you have a list, of sorts, of plays that you are waiting for.

Now, throw-ins and simple squeezes are pretty common, so they don’t stay on the list too long. Elopement plays and coup en passant variations I had played before I knew they had a name, so they actually by-passed my list. Some items get onto the list for sentimental or whimsical reasons, rather than any special technical element. I haven’t put “the beer card” on my list of things to do, but I might, just for fun. A weird one was the really deep finesse. I did play a suit contract (5♦ doubled, it was), and on the first round of trumps I led the ♦5 from dummy and ran it, winning the trick with all players following suit. I didn’t make the contract, but I didn’t care since that deep finesse worked. (It sounds ridiculous when you first think of it, but it’s actually not that bad. RHO was the doubler, of course, so I knew he had a trump stack, and LHO was either singleton or void. So then it’s a matter of waiting a few years or a few thousand hands to find LHO with the right singleton.) 

As time goes by, and your studies get more esoteric, the items that stay on the list tend to be things that are intrinsically rare and unlikely. Top of my list for now (and for the foreseeable future, truthfully) is a backwash squeeze. But there are some easier items still there. And the other day, one of the more recent additions actually got knocked off.

A technique I hadn’t heard of before came to my attention on BBO, within the last year (actually, probably within the last six months). Watching Vu-graph matches at BBO on-line, I saw described and executed what is known these days as an intra-finesse. With a holding like
A 8 x x x opposite Q 9 x,
if you have to play the suit for one loser, you have some fairly limited options. The king being singleton would do, but you aren’t going to play for it (too rare). If the suit is breaking 3-2, leading low to the queen will work half the time. But what if the bidding and play leads you to think that the king is sitting over the queen? You can play for the king being doubleton (ace and duck). Or you can play for either the knave or ten to be doubleton in front of the queen. You do that by playing small to the nine (the intra-finesse). That loses to the jack or ten, but when you get back in, the lead of the queen pins the doubleton honor in the other hand.

Now, I haven’t tried to calculate the odds of different configurations. But I’ve had my fill of hands with KJx sitting over my queen, and the chance to strike back with a winning line definitely got on my list.

N-S game, dlr E

            ♠ J 7
            ♥ 7 4 3
            ♦ Q 7 6 2
            ♣ A 8 6 5
♠ A 9 6 3 2             ♠ Q 8 4
♥ A J 9 6 5   [ ]       ♥ K 10 2
♦ -                     ♦ J 9 5 3
♣ Q 7 2                 ♣ K J 10
            ♠ K 10 5
            ♥ Q 8
            ♦ A K 10 8 4
            ♣ 9 4 3

E    S    W    N
Pass 1♦   2♦   3♦
3♥   Pass 4♥   All pass

At trick one there was an infraction. South led ♦A, dummy ruffed with the ♥5, and North played ♥3 to a chorus of queries. This became a penalty card, so to try and take advantage, I played a club to the ♣K to get to hand for a trump finesse that would definitely win. So trick three was hearts – 2, 8, 9, 3.

And there I was, in dummy, and there was still work to do. I would have to bring in the spade suit. I placed the ♣A with North since the ♣K held, so that meant there was an excellent chance that the ♠K was in the South hand. They can still force dummy with diamonds, so I need trumps 3-2, and I need spades 3-2 to keep down the losers and avoid a ruff. The bidding suggests diamonds 5-4, so there’s no great reason to think South might be short in spades. So the stage is set for the intra-finesse – trick 4 was spades, 2, 7, 8, 10. South exited with the ♥Q, won in hand so I could lead the ♠Q. And then it’s just mopping up: draw the last trump and the last spade, concede a trick to the ♣A, and claim 5-odd. No problem!