Post by rhmWin the first spade. Play the club finesse. If it wins next cash the club ace.
If East is a world-class player, you will quite a few times drop a doubleton king of clubs.
Come back in spades and play your last club from hand.
I am not sure whether this line is really better than the natural line above.
I would not expect even a world class player to always find the play of an honor from Hx when a heart is led from dummy.
My feeling is that this is probably the correct line. However, it loses when East has, for example, KJT98 Tx xx KTxx, as there is a club-spade squeeze available. The question is, how often would West lead a spade holding a singleton in that suit plus KQxxx in hearts?
On the actual hand, East held:
KJT98
K7
852
K73
Declarer won the first spade, took a club finesse (which held) and then led a heart to hand, on which East played the King.
There is still a line to make the contract - but it means playing East for this hand (or something similar). Duck the heart, win the spade return, cash the red-suit winners and throw East in with a spade to lead into the club tenace. I think this is anti-percentage at this stage, however, and it did not occur to declarer (who won the ace of hearts and took a second club finesse).
I think the real interest of the hand is analysing whether declarer can afford to duck at trick one. If East can be relied upon to lead a second spade, this works surprisingly well on the actual hand, as West has to find a discard from:
-
QT643
J764
T95
A diamond is surely out of the question. A heart discard, however, looks like a five-card suit, and declarer should now find the correct play when East inserts the king. And if West discards a club, declarer should find the play of the ace after the first club finesse holds (as this is guaranteed to reveal what is going on in the suit).
In other words, if you duck at trick one and East continues spades, there is an excellent pseudo-squeeze at trick 2.
The real risk with ducking trick one, of course, is if East finds the heart switch. A small heart is very unlikely to be a problem; you insert the nine and, if this loses to the ten, duck the heart continuation. The duck only costs if East is precisely 5413 distribution, with West holding the ten of hearts and East the king of clubs. Possible, but very unlikely.
However, what if East finds a switch to a top heart honour? I think the right play is to duck (this is essential on the actual hand). So, what is the chance of East finding a heart switch at trick two from, say, KJT98 KTxx xx Kx ?
I posed this hand (which was not the actual hand) as a defensive problem a few days ago to see if anyone could find the switch of the king of hearts. Needless to say, nobody did.
Thoughts welcome...