Finesse

In contract bridge and similar games, a finesse is a card play technique which will enable a player to win an additional trick or tricks should there be a favorable position of one or more cards in the hands of the opponents.

The player attempts to win either the current trick or a later trick with a card of the suit he leads notwithstanding that the opponents hold a higher card in the suit; the attempt is based on the assumption that the higher card is held by a particular opponent. The specifics of the technique vary depending upon the suit combination being played and the number of tricks the player is attempting to win in that suit.

To finesse a card is to play that card.

Thus, in the example, the Queen is finessed. The outstanding King is the card finessed against, or the card the player hopes to capture by the finessing maneuver. Thus, you finesse against a missing honor, but you finesse the card you yourself play, the card finessed being so played that it has a chance of winning against the missing higher card.

A finesse is said to be onside or on if the finessable honor is favorably placed and offside or off if it is not.

Many finesses involve a tenace which is a combination of non-touching honors in the same hand, e.g. ♠ A Q or ♥ K J.

The term hook is a colloquialism for finesse. Similarly, "in the slot" is a colloquialism for onside.

A direct finesse is a finesse that gains a trick without losing one, as long as it is "on". For example:

If South (declarer) is on lead he can lead to the queen; that is, he leads a small spade and, if West plays low, plays the queen from dummy. If West is holding the king (it is "onside"), North-South will win two tricks, for a gain of one trick without losing a trick. (If West actually plays the king on the first trick, of course, North-South win two tricks by covering with the ace.)

An indirect finesse is a finesse that gains a trick - if it is on - but may involve losing a trick first. A typical example is:

South leads a spade toward the king; if West holds the ace, the king will either win the current trick or will become the highest remaining spade and win a later one. (More precisely, the king is set up as a winner, but that doesn't mean it will necessarily take a trick. It might be ruffed, or at No Trump the defense might run another suit for a squeeze and force it to be discarded. But this article is about finesses, and having acknowledged that such issues exist, we will ignore them henceforth.)

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