Without Finesse
By Mark Horton In 16th World Bridge Series On 22nd August 2022
This deal from the penultimate round of the McConnell qualifier was not without interest:
The first question to be addressed is what should South lead?
There does not appear to be much point in staring with the 
A, although it does allow you to take a look at dummy. Here it works if you switch to the 
Q or more simply a spade.
You could opt to lead a spade – here that might work, but having won in dummy if declarer plays a low club and North goes in with the king and returns a spade declarer can get home by putting in the jack. Not too difficult as hearts must be 6-1 and North is unlikely to have the AK and the 
K.
If you reject both of those possibilities in favour of a diamond, which card will you choose?
Given that you have an entry why not start with the A? Then it is easy enough to continue with the Q.
However, on the two occasions where East was in 3NT South’s choice was the 6. That allowed declarer to win in hand with the jack. How should declarer continue?
Running the Q is fine if North wins, but what if the finesse holds? Repeating it allows North to win and play a diamond when there are only eight tricks. It might be best to forget all about the finesse, and play a spade to the ace at trick two followed by a low club. If either defenders wins that you should be in clover and if the 10 holds you can cash the 
K and then play the Q.
Although I don’t know how the bidding or play went, I can tell you that Danuta Kazmucha made 3NT for Edmonds and Hatice Ozgur did the same for Galatasaray SK. That represented a major setback for teams Baker and Germany.
