An Expert by Foxymoron

I think there are more quotations about experts than any other category of person. One of my favourites is  "An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made, in a narrow field." by the Nobel Prize Winner Niels Bohr. A less serious one is "An ex is a has-been and a spurt is a drip under pressure".

The one that sprung to mind after a hand at the Club Pairs recently was, I believe, from David Burn, "An expert is someone who knows what he should have done just after he did something else". 

We had a surreal auction: 1NT-(2H)-6C-(Pass)-7C-All Pass. I am not sure why my partner thought we could make grand ("three aces partner"), and indeed, with hindsight, passing 6C or even bidding 6NT would have won the event. A diamond lead would have given me no chance, but South naturally led his partner's suit. I won, discarding a diamond, correctly ruffed a heart, crossed in clubs, and fatally ruffed a heart to isolate the menace. I could not now make the contract, but if I had planned better, I would have just run all the clubs except one, and then cashed the king and queen of spades. Now, and only now, should I cross to the ace of spades, and this catches North in a trump squeeze in the following ending.

If North pitches a diamond, declarer cashes the ace of diamonds and returns to East with a heart ruff. If North pitches a heart, then declarer ruffs a heart and returns to the ace of diamonds to enjoy the long heart. 

Ruffing the heart prematurely destroys the fragile end position, as the menaces are over dummy which gets squeezed first.