IMP Pairs | North | |||
Dlr: South | ![]() | |||
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Cayne | ||||
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West Pass Pass Pass All Pass |
North 2 ![]() 2 ![]() 3 ![]() |
East Pass Pass Pass |
Cayne 1 ![]() 2 ![]() 2NT 3NT |
Against 3NT, West led the 3
T.
A top diamond works well, but Cayne took another approach. Conventional wisdom says "8 ever, 9 never" when deciding to finesse a queen holding 8 or 9 cards in the suit. Cayne broke this rule at trick two by leading a club to dummy's jack. In practice, East won but could not prevent Cayne from taking 9 tricks.
The full deal:
IMP Pairs | North | |||
Dlr: South | ![]() | |||
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West | ![]() | East | ||
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![]() | Cayne | ![]() | ||
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Mathematically speaking, cashing the top clubs is a 57.92% bet, while finessing is 56.22%. Had Cayne played for the drop, though, dummy's long clubs would have been stranded. The only conventional wisdom applicable to this deal is that sometimes, rules are meant to be broken.
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