Treat today’s deal as a double-dummy problem. Can South succeed at four spades (yes, three no-trump would be better) after a heart is led to the nine, the heart ace is cashed (West discarding a club) and a third heart is led?
When I declared this hand, I ruffed the third heart trick high, which was necessary as the cards lay, and West discarded his other club. I then drew trumps. I eventually decided to rely on the clubs to provide two tricks — a reasonable aspiration, I still believe — but it was not to be.
However, say I had cashed one top diamond after taking only two rounds of trumps. Here, East would show out! I would then know the layout of the whole deal. At first glance, this information does not appear to help, but say I run all my trumps, discarding a diamond from dummy, and then take the diamond king. I would be left with the heart king and three clubs in dummy, so East would have to reduce to the same pattern. I could then cash the heart king to extract his exit card and throw him in with a club. To reach this ending, it is crucial both to cash all the trumps and to keep the heart king in dummy for control.
Even so, the defense could have beaten me legitimately from the start. East could have returned a low heart at trick two so as not to establish dummy’s heart king, or an inspired West could have ruffed the heart ace and played back either minor suit to achieve the same result. That is easier said than done, of course.