ACES ON BRIDGE
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the differ
ence in my life.” — Steve Jobs
North sensibly raises your onespade rebid to game. His fillers in your long suits look golden from his perspective.
West leads the club six, and you can see at least two sure losers in the majors. While you could cope with a singleton trump king on your right by starting with the ace or a low one, other considerations take precedence. Some slow losers can be discarded on the hearts, but you should try to ruff the other two in dummy.
Thus, you cannot afford to draw three rounds of trumps. You should plan to take only two rounds, leaving one opponent’s trump outstanding, and then cross-ruff. However, you cannot afford to go after trumps at once, lest the defenders return the suit. After capturing East’s club jack with the ace, start by knocking out the heart ace. East wins and continues clubs. You take that and finesse the spade queen. This is no time for any safety play.
East takes the spade king and returns a trump to dummy’s ace. You proceed to pitch two diamonds on the hearts, cross to the diamond ace, ruff a club, cash the diamond king, ruff a diamond and ruff another club. East can score his spade 10 on this trick or the last.
Note that taking the spade finesse at trick two would be fatal. East would win and play back a low spade. After taking your two club ruffs, you would lead a heart from dummy, but an inspired East would duck! Now you would lack the communications to score a second heart trick, and the game would fail.
ANSWER: Lead the spade four. If your second suit were longer or stronger, you might lead one as partner has not shown any enthusiasm for spades, but your longest suit still offers the best chance of setting the contract here. The opponents have not looked for a heart fit, so that would be my second choice. With my hearts and clubs switched, I might go the other way.