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:

KQT(xxx)
KT(xxxx)
QT(xxxx)

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