Too Focused

Dealer:  South Vul: E-W	Michael ♠KQ932 ♥J73 ♦J85 ♣52
Molly ♠J76 ♥KQ2 ♦KT4 ♣QT76		Eddie ♠8 ♥865 ♦9632 ♣AJ984
	William ♠AT54 ♥AT94 ♦AQ7 ♣K3

South	West	North	East
William	Molly	Michael	Eddie
1NT	Pass	2♥	Pass
3♠1	Pass	4♠	All Pass

3♠¹ = Super-accept

Opening Lead: ♣ 6

At the 2015 Charlottesville regional, I ended up in 4♠ on this hand.

Clearly there’s a club to lose, so my goal was to avoid losing 3 red-suit tricks. If the diamond finesse is onside, this is no problem, but if not, then I had to pick up hearts for just one loser. I knew that missing heart honors being split would help me accomplish that, so I set my sights on that line. After Eddie won the opening club, I won his club continuation and drew trump, ending on the board. I ran the ♥J, and Molly won the king. She sighed and thought for a bit before continuing with another club, which gave me the chance for a ruff and sluff. As I had put my faith in the second heart finesse, I ruffed the club in dummy (pitching a diamond in hand) and finessed the ♥10. Molly won again and exited with her last heart. This gave me a fourth heart trick, but I still had 2 diamonds in each hand, so I was forced to take the diamond finesse after all. It lost, and I was down.
After the hand, my partner, Michael, pointed out that the ♥9 gave me a 100% percent play on the third club lead. If I pitch a diamond from dummy instead of my hand, I can play the ♥10, losing to the queen no matter where it is, but the 9 is promoted to a winner for my other diamond loser in dummy.
I had gotten so caught up in my original line of counting on the heart honors to split, that I didn’t consider the additional option presented to me by the ruff and sluff. While changing strategies for no reason is usually a losing proposition, changing because of new information can often be the winning play.