Well, let’s go back to the bidding. What would you have done with the North hand over an invitational bid of 3 hearts from West? I guess pass is a good alternative since partner couldn’t act over 1 heart white vs. red. Especially if you are quite a conservative player, like Ron, you may choose not to enter the bidding with that hand.
But let’s say you have an “I feel lucky-day” and double for take-out. Next hand raises to 4 hearts and you hold the South hand. What would you bid?
I guess most experts (all that I have asked, and that isn’t few) if they act with a bid instead of a double would bid 4 NT for the minors. That way you get diamonds into the picture in case your partner has 4=1=5=3 or even 5=1=5=2 (when he chose to double instead of bidding 3 spades). You really don’t have to be afraid to end up in diamonds with less trumps than in clubs as most world class players have the agreement that they bid the lower suit with equal length.
Lotan Fisher bid 5 clubs, and some of his Israeli entourage explained to me that he bids like that because he likes to play the hands. Lotan would probably give the same macho answer, but there could be more to it than that. A world class player would hardly bid 5 clubs unless he had some extra information.
Ok. So the contract is 5 hearts and you lead the ace of clubs. If North was Agustin Madala or Thomas Bessis he would throw the queen of clubs (partner must have at least five clubs for the 5 club bid) to make sure that partner shifted to a spade. When you have some other “gadgets” you don’t need to find these fine bridge plays to get partner to do the right thing.
And then the grande finale – the spade 10 continuation. This is a pretty telling board. So you need to make the right bidding action (doubling 3 hearts or passing; close call I guess), you need to bid 5 clubs (non-logical), you don’t make the “bridge play” by dropping the queen of clubs under the ace (to make sure you get the spade shift) and you switch (non-logical) to the 10 of spades (a defense you are way too good to do if you just used bridge logic). And of course; your non-logical defense was spot on hitting your partner with the hand of your dreams! Get a statistician to do the numbers.