Can you pull out this play?

A.N. Other said, “The essence of intelligence is skill in extracting meaning from everyday experience.”

One word in that sentence is relevant to this deal. South is in four spades. West leads the club ace, cashes the club king (East plays three, eight) and shifts to the heart 10. How should declarer continue?

East’s three-heart response was pre-emptive. With a hand worth at least a game-invitational raise, he would have cue-bid three diamonds. Then, South probably should have settled for three spades, trusting partner to raise with a suitable hand, but he plunged into four spades. West allowed the unfavorable vulnerability to dissuade him from sacrificing in five hearts. (Best defense would have taken five hearts down two, plus 500 for North-South.)

The original declarer thought this was a straightforward deal. He won the third trick with his heart ace, ruffed his second heart on the board and ran the spade jack. However, West took the trick with the king and shifted to his singleton diamond. South won on the board and had to get back to his hand to remove West’s trumps — but he couldn’t do it safely. When he ruffed a low diamond with the spade six, West overruffed with the 10 to defeat the contract.

Declarer had to avoid being stranded in the dummy. He needed to execute a dentist’s coup by extracting West’s safe exit cards. After ruffing the second heart, South should have cashed the club queen and diamond ace before running the spade jack. Then, even if West had a second diamond, declarer could have ruffed in his hand and drawn trumps.