Board & Card Games Asked on November 23, 2021
A finesse is a technique which enable a player to win a trick when an opponent is holding a stronger card.
I read several articles about finesse in contract Bridge, and I interested, What are the best finesses to use in Spades?
I see 2.5 major differences between Bridge and Spades that may prevent some of the finesses:
There is no Dummy player with an open hand,
There is only one round of bidding, thus players have less information about other hands,
The theory of Bridge describes many types of finesses:
For more see:
I think this completes the other answers, implementing the idea into actions.
Indirect Finesses are when partner plays a non-honor card towards your tenace. They also sometimes occur when you are second to play in the trick. You will be the one to win the trick if successful.
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/spades/comments/f34h7u/common_tenaces_and_finesses/
Answered by Cohensius on November 23, 2021
Finesses are all about considering the risk. In the example Benjamin notes, where partner plays low, right-hand opponent (RHO) plays low, and you hold AQ
, you have a choice. You can play Q
, which has a 67% chance of winning (with no other information), or you can play A
, which has a 100% chance of winning but promotes the opponents' K to a trick 33% of the time. Sometimes one or the other is the right choice: you have to decide how important it is for you to be on lead.
Starting a finesse for sure is difficult in spades, but the idea of the finesse is still something that should direct your leads to some extent. For example, you should avoid leading away from AQ - that means you'll never get that finesse, and opponent holding the K will likely win it even if it's RHO.
Further, information is available: one round of bidding exists, and so if one of the opponents indicated a higher bid, then guess what - they probably have most of the power (or most of the spades, but hopefully that becomes evident sooner than later). If that's RHO, then be very cautious both leading away from trapping honors (AQ, KJ) and just leading away from honors in general - this is something you always should avoid, but avoid it more. Conversely, if LHO is the stronger one apparently from the bidding, you might be more inclined than normal to lead away from strength - in the hopes that you draw out one of LHO's trapping honors and promote yours to a trick. Lack of information cuts both ways, after all!
Answered by Joe on November 23, 2021
The smaller amount of information in Spades means it is hard to purposefully start a finesse, but you can still easily continue one if it is started by accident. For example, your partner happens to lead small and first opponent plays small, and you are holding the AQ. You can now play the Q and hope that the K is not in the remaining opponent's hand. In Bridge in the simplest model, this has a half chance of working because you don't know which opponent has your missing K. Here in the simplest model it's very similar: there's a 1/3 chance your choice doesn't matter at all (because your partner has the K), but when deciding your move you should assume that your choice does matter (such an assumption will never hurt you), and so there's effectively still a half-half chance of success.
Answered by Benjamin Cosman on November 23, 2021
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