Source: 24th European Youth Team Championships Bulletins. Click Aqui to read Daily Play Problem Nº 4.
West leads the queen of hearts!
How do you play on solving your trumps:
A) Do you finesse through West?
B) Do you finesse through East?
C) Do you try to drop it with ace-king of trumps?
Is there anything more that you have to think of before playing on?
Try to find a solution before you continue reading…
Solution:
The mathematical solution is to try to drop the queen with ace and king of trumps. That would have failed this time, as if you follow that line and then play on clubs, East would ruff the third round, cash the king of hearts and shift to diamonds.
Therefore, you have to finesse through East, as if West gets in there is no real threat against you. Though playing like that you also have to duck the opening lead! If you won the ace of hearts at trick one, East has an entry with the king of hearts and you have to make the correct guess in trumps to make the contract. So the correct answer was, duck the opening lead and finesse against East.
