The obvious fails; what is the option?

Fran Lebowitz, who is wellknown for her sardonic wit, said, “Even when freshly washed and relieved of all obvious confections, children tend to be sticky.”

Some bridge deals, even when freshly dealt and relieved of all obvious losers, turn out to be sticky.

In today’s deal, how should South play in seven spades after West leads the heart two: queen, king, ace?

North thought that South’s three-diamond rebid was a helpsuit game-try, which he was happy to accept. Five clubs was a controlbid, expressing slam interest. Then, after North indicated the diamond ace with his controlbid, South jumped majestically to seven spades.

South starts with only 10 top tricks: six spades, one heart and three diamonds. Probably the first reaction is to draw one round of trumps, cash the three diamond tricks, discarding the heart four, and hope to ruff the heart eight, heart three and diamond six on the board.

However, there is a second option: establish a club trick. This works if the suit is 4-4 or the ace drops quickly. It fails if East’s distribution is, say, 1=5=2=5, but that is less likely.

This is the plan: Diamond to the ace, club ruff, spade to the board (happy to see the 2-1 split), club ruff, trump to the board, club ruff, diamond king-queen (discarding a heart from the board), ruff a heart (or diamond), trump another club, ruff another red-suited card and cash the club king.

Note that the original cash-threediamonds line fails here.