My partner, Laurie Vogel, defended today’s deal with great aplomb.
Vogel sensibly led the heart jack from her sequence, and declarer won in hand in order to preserve an entry to the long heart in dummy. He then crossed to the club ace and ran the spade jack to the queen. Rather than panicking now, Vogel correctly continued hearts. A diamond shift could not be necessary, with partner holding at most 5 points. Bridge logic and her partner’s carding in clubs implied that South must have started with a singleton club to lead one to the ace.
Declarer was still intent on keeping a route to the fourth heart, so he won the heart queen in hand and continued trumps, whereupon Vogel continued her good work by leading a third round of hearts. This cut the communications between declarer and dummy, and now South had to lose two diamond tricks for down one.
It was reasonable to start in the way declarer did, but at trick four he might have foreseen what was about to happen in the heart suit against best defense. Had he done so, he would have realized that he needed to try his luck in diamonds. If South inserts the heart nine from dummy at trick four, he gains an extra entry to play up to the diamond king. He can later take the third heart trick in dummy for a further diamond lead, establishing a second trick in that suit.
As it was, declarer managed to go down without doing anything too silly, with both majors splitting and both minor-suit finesses onside!