Print Friendly and PDF


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

Dummy
AQ9
WestEast
??? ???
South
S654


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 S9, hoping that West has the jack and ten.


Another example:

Dummy
AJ9
WestEast
??? ???
South
S5432


Again a spade is led to dummy's S9. The hope is that West holds one of the following:

    SKQT(xxx)
    SKT(xxxx)
    SQT(xxxx)

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

See also

  • Backward Finesse
    A finesse that's taken in the "opposite" direction of a regular finesse.

  • Chinese Finesse
    The lead of an unsupported honor as a pretense to a legitimate finesse.

  • Double Finesse
    A finesse for two opposing honor cards.

  • Intra-Finesse
    A type of finesse against three opposing honor cards.

  • Marked Finesse
    A finesse made obvious by the auction or play of the hand.

  • Obligatory Finesse
    A type of ducking play that finesses an opposing honor.

  • Ruffing Finesse
    A finesse for an enemy card (usually an honor) by threat of a ruff.

  • Simple Finesse
    A finesse for a card (usually an honor) held by the opponents.

  • Two-Way Finesse
    A card combination in which either defender can be finessed for a queen.