Plan the Play

[nige1]

You have a point I overlooked: If the defense forces in spades the standard line has a problem when hearts are 4-1.

You need to guess the diamonds and the location of the ♦T, but at least you can get home.

When the diamond finesse fails and diamonds are 3-2 only West is likely to have four hearts.

Cash North remaining heart after the spade force.

If you believe West has 3 diamonds cash both diamonds and draw trumps.

If you believe West has ♦Tx go to the king of diamond and discard the ♦A on the ace of hearts.

If you believe West started with ♦xx, finesse the ♦9 and discard the ♦A on the ace of hearts.

If you ruffed a club early this line is not available.

But admittedly my previous calculation is wrong, since I will not get the above guesses right all the time when the defense does switch to spades.

The auction started 1♦ (P) 1♥ (X). Arguably, that makes it more likely that the doubler is short in ♦.