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How would you play the hand at rubber bridge?
 WEST
leads the five of spades to East’s ace and the three of spades is
returned. How would you play the hand at rubber bridge, or in a
teams-of-four match?
At these forms of scoring
you must give yourself every chance of making the contract. Before
committing to the club finesse, you should therefore cash the two top
diamonds, hoping to drop the queen. This increases your chances from 50%
(for the club finesse alone) to 58%. At pairs you should cross to a
diamond and take the club finesse, accepting defeat when it loses. Why
is that? Because if you fail to drop the diamond queen in two rounds —
which will happen 84% of the time — you will set up one more winner
for the defenders to cash.  If the club finesse subsequently loses you
will go two down, instead of just one down. Such a consideration would
matter little at rubber bridge, where the game bonus dwarfs the cost for
an extra undertrick or two. Suppose now that dummy held only ace-king
doubleton of diamonds. The chance of dropping a doubleton queen with
seven cards out is appreciably less than when there are only six cards
out. Even at rubber bridge scoring, you might decide to take the club
finesse straight away, not willing to pay the price of possible extra
undertricks.
— David Bird
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