Endplays

The idea

A finesse asks where a card is. With an endplay you don't need to know, because you're not going to lead the suit at all.

Dummy holds ♠ A Q opposite two small in your hand, and you need both tricks. Lead towards the queen and you win when the king is on your left: 50%.

Or make an opponent lead spades. Now it doesn't matter who holds the king. If the player on your right leads a low spade, the queen wins; if they lead the king, the ace takes it and the queen is good. That's 100%. The rest of this article is about how to force that lead.

What you need

• Trumps under control, and usually at least one left in each hand.
• Side suits you can strip: cash the winners and ruff the rest out.
• A card to hand over the lead with, and it must reach the opponent you want on lead rather than their partner.
• A tenace to protect: the holding you didn't want to lead yourself.

How to do it

1. Draw trumps, keeping one in each hand if you want a ruff-and-discard to be available.
2. Cash your winners in the side suits you're eliminating.
3. Ruff the remainder out, so neither hand has a card left in those suits.
4. Throw the opponent in, usually by conceding a trick you were losing anyway.
5. Take what they give you. They have nothing safe left.

In step four, the trick you concede must be one you couldn't avoid losing. If you give up a trick you could have won, you've lost a trick and you still need the finesse.

The ruff and discard

The ruff and discard is the other thing that makes an endplay work. When both your hands are void in a suit and an opponent leads it, you ruff in one hand and throw a loser from the other.

You lose nothing on the trick and get rid of a loser. The elimination has to be complete: a single card left in a stripped suit gives the opponent a safe exit, and the plan fails.

When to look for one

Look for one every time you're about to take a finesse for the contract.

• You have a two-way guess and no count. An endplay means you don't have to guess.
• You have a loser you can't avoid. It can be your throw-in card.
• Your side suits are short. Short suits are cheap to eliminate.
• The count says the finesse is wrong. Then an endplay may be your only chance.

You can combine the two. Strip the hand first, and if the throw-in doesn't work you can still take the finesse.

A word about squeezes

The squeeze is the other well-known ending, and it comes up much less often. A squeeze makes an opponent who is guarding two suits give one of them up, because they have run out of cards to spare.

It needs conditions an endplay doesn't (the count rectified, the right cards in the right hands), and it needs an article of its own. Endplays come up far more often, so learn them first.