It’s not difficult to make four hearts on this deal with all four hands exposed. After West leads the K-A-J of clubs, you ruff, cash the A-K of spades and trump a spade in dummy. You then lead the nine of hearts to the ace, rejecting the finesse and felling West’s singleton king. You lose a diamond trick later, but you make four hearts.

But if you could not see the opposing cards, you might very well go down one after losing a heart finesse to the singleton king. However, even without the advantage of a peek, rejecting the finesse is the right play!

There is a very good reason for arriving at this conclusion. First you take West’s bidding into account; then you combine it with the additional knowledge gained from the play to the first six tricks.

At trick seven, when you lead the nine of hearts from dummy, you know that West — who must have had at least four diamonds and four clubs for his bids, and who has already shown up with three spades — cannot possibly have more than two hearts. (Actually, he’s much more likely to have either one heart or none.)

It follows that you cannot gain by taking a trump finesse. Even if the nine won, with no way to take a second finesse, you’d still have to lose a trump trick later to East’s K-x-x or K-x-x-x. Your only hope, therefore, is that West was dealt the singleton king!

It is true that the chance of West having been dealt specifically the singleton king is very slim, but a remote chance is surely better than no chance at all.

Tomorrow >> Famous Hand.

— Steve Becker King Features