Posted 2011-December-15, 16:01
You need to avoid losing a heart, a spade and two diamonds. There is very little you can do in the way of a useful endplay, so it's possible you will end up needing to decide which two diamond honours North has got.
In any case, I would win the club in hand and play on trumps.
I am not going to cash the second club before playing on trumps, because I don't want North to switch to a diamond when he wins the ace of hearts. I want to leave him with a club exit.
North will take the ace of trumps and play something back - what is this?
Suppose it is a club. Which one? (i.e. are clubs 7-2, 6-3 or 5-4?)
I would win this in dummy and take a spade finesse.
What happens?
If it loses and a diamond is returned, then South probably has the ace (because North has turned up with the SK and the HA and passed in first seat), and hence I need North to have the Q10.
If the spade finesse wins, I draw the last trump. When South has the singleton trump I have a choice of lines:
(i) ace of spades and another spade, gaining when South has Kx of spades.
(ii) play a diamond. I can't think of a layout where this gains over simply cashing the spade and seeing what happens, although it does give North the chance the misdefend.