When this hand cropped up in an online game, South decided to overcall two spades at her first turn on a hand where others might have doubled, since the hand was so playable in so many strains. Today, the final contract was likely to be four spades either way. On the actual auction, if North had gone low with a simple raise to three spades, South might have passed.
East won the heart lead with the ace, and, when the queen appeared from South, East could deduce that West held three hearts. (It was highly unlikely that South had falsecarded here, since that would surely end up costing him a trick.) East switched to his singleton club, declarer taking that with the ace. How should the play proceed?
The original declarer cashed the spade queen and spade ace and then played another club. When East showed out, the jig was up. Declarer could not ruff both of her club losers in dummy without establishing West’s spade jack, and the diamonds could not be established for a discard, so nine tricks was her limit.
It would have been better to take two rounds of trumps with the ace and king first. The contract is still a claim when spades are 2-2, but now, when East shows out, declarer can ruff two clubs in dummy with low trumps. Starting at trick five, the sequence of play would be: a club to the king, club ruff, heart ruff, club ruff. South would then be able to return to hand with the diamond ace to draw the final trump with her spade queen.