Eight Ever Nine Never

This rule is mainly about what to do if you are missing the queen and want to know whether to finesse.

Do you play off the ace–king, hoping the queen falls in two rounds, or do you cash the ace in case of a bare queen and finesse on the second round?

The key situations are when West holds Q-x-x or when East has Q-x. “Eight Ever, Nine Never” helps you decide. With eight cards between the two hands, you should finesse the jack. When there are five cards missing and the suit breaks 3–2, the queen will be in the three-card holding three times for every twice that it is in the doubleton. You would need a very good reason to go against the rule. What could that be?

If there are sixteen points missing, East opened the bidding and West has turned up with an ace, you would put East with the queen and try to drop it.

How do you play the trumps in 4❤️? “Nine Never” says not to finesse with nine cards, but the odds are closer.

In general, Q-x offside is slightly more likely than Q-x-x onside, which is why the rule says to go for the drop. So do you play off the ace–king?

I must tell you the bidding before you answer. Suppose first that you opened 1❤️ in fourth seat and, with no opposing bidding, you reached 4❤️. In this case, you follow the rule and play for the drop. In fact, the bidding was:

The opponents have bid a lot with 14 points between them, especially if they are vulnerable. They must have some distributional values. In this case, you would cash only the heart ace, planning to finesse on the second round. This works when the full deal is:

If the finesse-or-drop decision is in a side suit, you might try some detective work in the other suits first. You might be able to establish that one opponent is long in the key suit or that he needs the vital queen to justify his bidding. In such cases, you can finesse him for it.
When you have to tackle the key suit head-on, the bidding often provides the best clue. If one of the opponents made a two-suited overcall, he will be short in the other suits and the queens are likely to be in the other hand. Has there been an informative double? Informative is exactly what it can be.

West leads a club. East wins with the queen and switches to the heart queen. Having won this, you need to play the trump suit. If you follow the maxim “Nine Never,” you will play the spades from the top. Of course, you should not expect spades to break 2–2 because of East’s take-out double. With this in mind, you cash the ace (in case of a bare queen) and are happy to see West follow. You finesse the jack next time, as East’s double said he had tolerance for all the unbid suits.

The double also implies that East is short in diamonds. So, after drawing the last trump, you finesse West for the diamond queen.

You have used the auction to find both queens one to reject the maxim, and one to follow it.