When you need to ruff losers in dummy, it normally pays to do so before you draw trumps, and such was the case on this hand tonight. The NS winners benefited from declarer losing her way on this hand, in 6S, but the right path was not obvious. We settled for the more mundane 4S, and I did not find the right line:
South finds the most testing lead against 4S (or 6S) of a trump, and you win in East. How are you going to set out to make the maximum? It would seem that you can ruff three clubs in dummy and discard one on a diamond if the ace is right, but the timing has to be correct. The winning line is to ruff a club, play the ace of hearts and ruff a heart, ruff a club, ruff a heart and ruff a club. Now a further heart ruff brings you back to East and you can draw the outstanding trump and play a diamond. South ducks, and the king wins, but you now ruff the last heart and play another diamond, and this is a stepping stone to the winning queen of diamonds, having extracted all of South's hearts. If the hearts are 4-3 you are also home, and this line seems better than playing an early diamond, as I did, and hoping the diamonds are 4-3 with the ace onside.
Anything other than ruffing a club at trick two is only 11 tricks, as I found to my cost.
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