Posted 2020-September-01, 16:40
You are probably right that it's best to start with a small spade towards the queen. If it doesn't hold we may a rectified the count for a clubs-hearts squeeze, and if it does hold, it may be reasonably safe to assume that North has ♠A.
Another option is a Morton's Fork against South, playing her for ♠A as well as ♥Jxxx. We play a small spade from dummy and work towards this 6-card ending:
♠863 ♥K5 ♦J ==== ♠Q ♥AQT6 ♣8
South has discarded a spade on the 3rd club. Both follow to 3 rounds of diamonds.
We now play ♦J. North discards a small spade. This means that North wasn't squeezed in three suits (North could have held ♠A ♥Jxxx ♣J but that wasn't the case) so we throw dummy's club and cash ♥ K and A. We now have
♠863 ==== ♠Q ♥QT
If hearts split, whoever has ♠A will also have a club (North) or a spade (South) to cash, but on the other hand, if hearts don't split, our only chance now is that South has ♠A ♥Jx.
When I wrote this post I didn't realize that we also could have a throw-in against North because if North exits a heart, we can play ♥T from dummy so we cater to both ♥Jxxx and ♥xxx by North.
So maybe not so interesting as I thought - Felicia's plan is best but as it happened it was an inferior plan that worked.
The Japanese declarer got help from opps but the others went down. GIB went down against Shogi and me, also.
The world would be such a happy place, if only everyone played Acol :) --- TramTicket