Ann and I played this hand against Miles and Daphne. I led the king of diamonds and declarer won, drew trumps ending in hand and led a club up to get the bad news. Now came a diamond to my 10. I have to admit to being asleep at trick 1 and missing Ann's count signal, so I didn't want to risk underleading the queen of diamonds. When I played the queen declarer discarded a club. You can follow the play by clicking 'Next' on the diagram. The opponents were playing Lebensohl responses so South's 3♥ showed about 8-10 HCP. As partner seemed to have the queen of clubs it was very likely that declarer had the queen of spades, so I tried the effect of conceding a ruff and discard by playing another diamond.
Declarer can still succeed by discarding a spade in dummy and ruffing in hand. East has to discard a spade and now declarer can play ace and another spade, ruffing in dummy, and exit with a low club to endplay East. But it was a tricky ending and declarer went wrong by ruffing my diamond exit in dummy, going one down when the spade finesse lost.
At another table Keith was declarer and took his opportunity to impress the EBU chairman who was sitting East. Keith eliminated spades and diamonds and endplayed East in clubs to give the tenth trick.
That was a good board for our team, but we got our comeuppance on this one.
Against me, West found the devilish lead of the 8 of clubs. Thinking that the king of clubs had to be offside, I won the ace and played ace and another heart, throwing my remaining club. West cashed the ace of diamonds, which seemed helpful, but not when the next diamond was ruffed by East and a heart was ruffed by West. Two down when I was cold for two overtricks! It was little consolation that Chris had played the same way when West led the seven of clubs.
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