Feels straight forward to me playing IMPS. West's attack of small spades most likely mean that west has a singleton spade and at least a trump to expect a possible ruff. Therefore, East can not be played for heart length. If hearts are 2-1 the contract is laydown anyways so West should be played for the heart length from the beginning. Cashing the Ace of hearts might cause some problems. There are possible ways of J of hears getting a promotion, so playing imps I would go for the safest way. Winning the club return, and immidiately ruffing a diamond. Cashing the Q of spades discarding the club from hand. West will ruff, and West will either return a diamond or small trump. If a diamond is played, it is ruffed, a spade is then ruffed with the Q of hearts, and another diamond is played, the contract is home with the possibility of an overtrick. You can ruff a club to get back to the hand. If a small hearts is played, it is won in hand with the 10, a diamond will be ruffed, a spade ruffed high and south will collect trumps. Total losers would be: A of spades, a small club(was discarded and west ruffed), and a diamond. If the defender returned a diamond, total losers would be: A of spades, a small club. Example problems with cashing the ace of hearts: East shows out, now you can ruff only 2 diamonds. If you try to discard a club with a spade honor, the defence will switch to trumps (playing the J) and the contract will fail, having lost a spade, a club(discard), and 2 diamonds. The declarer might instead play something like this: After cashing the Ace of hearts, will ruff a diamond, ruff a spade high, ruff another diamond, and cash a top spade honor, discarding the last diamond or the club. The contract fails either way because the defence uses the remaining communication. West ruffs, and plays a diamond if a club was discarded, and east will play a spade, promoting the jack, and if a diamond was discarded, west will play a club, and east will play a spade again promoting the Jack. The declarer should therefore prevent all these outcomes and NOT cash the ace of hearts playing IMPs, and gurentee the contract. Note that West is most likely one of these two shapes: 1-3-4-5, 1-3-3-6. If West had 7 or more clubs, could have bid 3clubs, and likewise it would mean west having 2 or less diamonds. With 8+ diamonds, East might have bid differently.
