My other bridge column deal

This is my one other hand that made the bridge column. I'll try this as a low-tech bridge movie. If you want to play along, cover up the screen and reveal it until you see a line with "Now what?" and consider what you would play.

[UPDATE: my partner insists that I switched the HT and HJ both here and in the hand reported to the NY times. The analysis is basically unaffected, but the bidding is even less impressive and the play a bit cooler.]

    A83
    K64
    K852
    T94
 
    QJT964
    AJ95
    73
    3

East  South  West  North
1C    1S     Dbl   2S
3C    3H     Pass  4S
Pass  Pass   Pass

How about that 3H bid?

A low club is led and RHO wins the K and plays the Ace. Presumably you ruff.

Now what?



I think that starting with a diamond towards the K is best (for reasons to be revealed). At least that's what I did. LHO wins the DA and taps you again with the CQ.

Now what?



I think RHO must have the SK on this auction, so I reject the spade finesse and play SA -- this is why I wanted to test diamonds first. Both follow low.

Now what?



Now try a partial elimination to see if you can avoid a heart guess: DK, diamond ruff, exit a spade. There are no discards and RHO wins SK and leads a club in this position:

    8
    K64
    8
    -

    9
    AJ95
    -
    -

Now what?


Ruff in hand, LHO pitches a heart, and...

Now what?



LHO must have started 2=4=4=3, so there's no need to guess the hearts: pitch a heart from dummy, HK, S8 squeezes another heart from LHO and now HA drops the Q and HJ is your 10th trick.

There was a kind of non-material aspect to the endplay after RHO won SK -- I had 9 tricks already if I just ruffed a diamond in my hand, but the ruff-sluff got me to 9 while preserving that diamond as a menace.

Full deal and link below.



This was the whole hand.

    A83
    K64
    K852
    T94

72          K5
Q872        T3
AJT6        Q94
Q85         AKJ762

    QJT964
    AJ95
    73
    3

NY Times column here.