Messing up the defence

Defence is hard, I'm sure I've mentioned that before. I messed up this hand in a big way and the worst thing was although I could see it coming I didn't put enough thought in to work out how to prevent it.

North	South
1♥	1♠
2♣	3N

	♠ A 8 6 ♥ Q 5 4 3 2 ♦ 2 ♣ A K T 2
♣ 5		♠ J 7 5 ♥ A T 9 7 ♦ T 9 7 6 5 ♣ 4

Partner leads a club; we lead 3^rds and 5^ths and I suspect this is a 5^th.

Rather oddly declarer hops up with the Ace dropping the 8 from hand and plays a diamond to the Queen and partners King.

Partner returns the ♣2 which runs to the Queen and you pitch the ♠7 (rev count). Now comes the ♦A, partner follows small, and the ♦J on which partner discards the ♣6 (dummy discards two hearts).

With your newly set up ♦T9 and the ♥A still an entry it's easy to feel pretty good about this hand. Declarer now leads out the ♥K, take it or leave it?

(Have a think, it won't hurt)

Decided?

If you have worked it out I'm sure you will agree that declarer isn't on form. Their hand must be 4252 shape which means that aside from bidding their suits out of order simply playing small to the first round of clubs would have secured the contract.

Regardless if you grab the ♥A and take you two rounds of diamonds you'll probably be looking at this:

	♠ A 8 ♥ Q ♦ - ♣ K T
♠ Q x x ♥ - ♦ - ♣ J x		♠ J 5 ♥ T 9 7 ♦ - ♣ -
	♠ K x x x ♥ x ♦ - ♣ -

From here it won't matter whether declarer has any idea what this position actually means. You'll play a spade to the table where maybe he'll first play the ♣K but sure as anything he'll cash the ♥Q and when that last round of hearts is played your partner is squeezed in the blacks.

If you duck the heart declarer has end play opportunities if he can guess the shape but we know that isn't happening.