Why did he play on the short suit?

Good bridge players think of the right thing at the right moment. They don't wait until the postmortem to find the winning bid or play.

In today's deal, West overlooked a critical inference and allowed an apparently impossible game to make.

That South hand, with its conspicuous lack of aces, was a little light for the jump to three no-trump, but it was a little heavy for an invitational two no-trump. When you smell a game, bid that game.

West led the spade three: five, ace, two. Back came the spade nine, high from a remaining doubleton. After South covered with the queen, West correctly ducked. If he had won, he couldn't have returned a spade without conceding an extra trick in the suit.

South played a diamond to dummy's queen and continued with the diamond 10. West, thinking that South was trying to establish his suit, ducked both of these tricks. But now South claimed his six club winners to make the contract.

Whenever there is a long, almost-solid suit sitting in the dummy like that and declarer attacks a different suit, it is cents to croissants that the suit is solid: that declarer has the missing honor. So, West should have gobbled the first (or second) diamond trick with the ace and switched to the heart nine (high in theory denying an honor in the suit), hoping East had that ace. Then East would have led the spade six through South's J-8 to West's K-10. This would have given the defense five tricks: one diamond, one heart and three spades.