This road leads to nowhere

Whenever some bridge declarers come to a crossroads, they always seem to crash. In today’s deal, South thought he was driving so cleverly along the main highway when in reality he was heading down a side road that looked superficially attractive but was leading to a cliff top. Against three no-trump, West led the heart three: four, jack, king. South counted seven top tricks and anticipated getting two more from diamonds. He also knew an avoidance play when he saw one. South led a diamond to dummy’s king, returned to his hand with a spade and led a second diamond. If West had played the queen, South was planning to duck in the dummy, keeping East off the lead. However, when West played the 10, declarer put up dummy’s ace and led a third round. South was pleased to see West win this trick, but he was less happy when West promptly switched to the club nine (the high card denying interest in the suit) in answer to his partner’s encouraging club-seven discard on the previous trick. East won with his ace and returned a heart: down one. South’s path required finding the diamonds 3-2, West’s holding the club ace and West’s having to win his side’s diamond trick. But there was a much better route available. Assuming West’s heart three was an honest card, the suit had to be splitting 4-3. If so, South just needed to find West with the club jack. At trick two, South should have played a club to dummy’s 10. His nine tricks would have been four spades, one heart, two diamonds and two clubs.