Some would respond one diamond on these South cards, but my partner preferred to simplify the auction with one spade. I raised as North — the small doubleton looked wrong for a one-no-trump rebid — and partner sensibly asked for my shape via an artificial two no-trump. We play this call as asking for range and number of trumps.
When I showed only three spades, we diverted back to three no-trump but picked up a lead-directing double along the way.
I might have led a passive heart from the West hand, foreseeing bad breaks in the black suits, but this West chose a diamond, around to South’s nine. Declarer tried a heart to the queen at the second trick, smoking out the king. She won the diamond return and took the good shot of finessing the spade eight. After winning the third diamond with the king, however, declarer played a spade to the ace, no doubt hoping for the king to fall. Alas, no such luck was to be had, and the contract went down one.
It was possible to work out the full layout here. West would have led a club if he had one on this bidding, or a heart from a five-card suit. Diamonds were known to be 4-3, presumably leaving West with 5=4=4=0 distribution. Had declarer run the spade jack at trick six, she could have succeeded by stripping away the rest of the hearts, cashing the club ace and then ducking a club to East. That defender would have been endplayed to lead around to the club queen for declarer’s ninth trick.