This hand was provided by Marc Rabinowitz of Hudson. He held the South cards. His partner was John Toy of Buffalo, NY. They were playing in the Flight A open pairs at the Labor Day Regional Tournament in Pittsburgh last month.
West started with a weak two bid and Toy doubled. Rabinowitz jumped to the heart game. A case can be made for the more conservative bid of three hearts, but the South hand does count to about nine points and declarer tends to have an edge in these situations because of the information provided by the opposition's bidding. Toy's jump to six hearts seems to be very conservative in light of his partner's jump to game, put this is an established partnership and it is likely that he was aware of his partner's aggressiveness. The final contract, while ambitious, is by no means unreasonable.
The opening lead was the king of spades. Cover the East/West cards and decide what line of play you would adopt.
Rabinowitz determined that the contract was unbeatable if hearts were divided 3-2 (68%) and clubs were 3-3 (36%). It was more likely that the clubs were divided 4-2 (49%), but this could be dealt with if diamonds were no worse than 4-2. Remember, declarer is trying to work this out at trick one. At any rate, Rabinowitz decided to play for the extra chance of finding diamonds 4-2 and falling back on clubs if necessary.
Accordingly, the king of spades was ducked in dummy and ruffed in the closed hand. A small heart was led to the ace and another spade was ruffed in hand. A small diamond was led to the king and another spade was ruffed with the last trump in the closed hand. The ace of diamonds was now played. Rabinowitz's intention was to pitch the little club from dummy if West followed suit. West, however, ruffed with the jack of hearts. If this was allowed to hold, a spade return would defeat the contract as East would be able to ruff out the ace. Rabinowitz over ruffed the jack with the king and led a small trump. When both outstanding trumps crashed on this trick he was back to needing the clubs to divide 3-3, which they did.
The point here is not the result, but that declarer adopted a line of play that would give him every chance to succeed. This is a good habit to get into. Toy and Rabinowitz finished sixth overall in this event.