Trumping Aces to Finesse by Ely Culbertson

St. Petersburg Times – Apr 1, 1932

If you should ever see your partner engaged in the pastime of trumping aces and kings in order to finesse other  suits, you might be pardoned if you doubted his sanity or at the very least his knowledge of the finer points of the game. Certainly, if he sacrificed gain, by this method you would feel certain that he had a very severe case of finessitis and no one could seriously blame you if you sought to avoid him as a partner in the future.

However occasionally a hand comes along in which some aces and kings have only the rank of the lowest playing cards in the suit, because their greatest value is that you can trump them and thus obtain easy accees to the other hand. The bidding had reached rather dizzy heights and South had to play his best to make his contract, even though in doing it be greatly disturbed the serenity of his partner.

South dealer Neither vulnerable

1—North is stretching the hand greatly to issue Slam Invitation. Slam should never be bid, on distribution alone and, for all North knows, the combined hands may not hold more than half the honor-tricks in the deck. Another reason against the slam invitation is the great danger of duplication of values due to North’s void in diamonds and the possibility of South holding high honors in that suit.

2—Instead of a minimum, South holds a maximum, one-bid. In fact, many players would mistakenly open the hand with a bid of two, forcing a response from partner. His bid of six spades is therefore fully justified. (E.: Strong two opening bids)

3—East fears it double might prevent him from making a spade trick and he is by no means sure that the club king is a trick-taker.

West opened the Q and North was not surprised when on of his trumps was used to win the trick, but did feel a mild measure of astonishment when South played the A. A trump was now led from dummy upon which East played the 9 and South the 10, South, of course, holding the trick.

South now led the K, the high card of that suit again trumping in dummy, to lead dummy’s last trump upon which East played the J and South the Q. East’s last trump was now captured and a small club led and the 10 in the dummy forced East’s K. East now led a heart hoping that South’s love for finesses would control his play, but South was through with finesses for this hand. He played the ace, led another club and the club suit in dummy afforded discards for his losing hearts.

An over optimistic raise have given the declarer the opportunity for brilliant playing which he had not been slow to seize.

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