Triple Finesse

A triple finesse (or "deep" finesse) is a finesse that's taken against three opposing honor cards:

Dummy

AQ9

West East

??? ???

South

654

In this layout, South is missing three spade honors: the king, jack and ten. If certain that the king is offside or if needing 3 tricks, South can lead a spade to dummy's 9, hoping that West has the jack and ten.

Another example:

Dummy

AJ9

West East

??? ???

South

5432

Again a spade is led to dummy's 9. The hope is that West holds one of the following:

In any of these cases, South is assured of two spade tricks.