Yes. I had a reason for not doing this, but it was a bad reason. I envisioned declared hopping up with the
King and then pitching two clubs on his top spades. There are several things wrong with this, starting with the fact that declared might, as you say, go wrong. But there is another thing. Suppose it goes as I feared, the declarer hops up and discards two clubs on spades. As the cards lay, he still has two clubs left in his hand and, if he leads a club hoping to ruff a third round, partner hops up with her Q, easy to do since it is her only club left, and plays her third trump. Bottom line: If I play a small club declarer goes down whether or not he hops up with the K. And since partner had Qx of clubs and a third heart, we can beat it 2 tricks if he mis-guesses.
More thoughts: Does partner have a third trump? Whether playing standard count signals or upside down count signals, in trump the high low shows a third trump.This agreement has been true more or less forever. Since 1961 at least, I am sure it can be found in Goren. And most every book since. But, at least with some, it also shows an ability to ruff. Lacking a stiff somewhere, it is reasonable to play the hearts bottom up, lest partner think that with three trump and six spades, surely playing hi low would be based on ruffing power.
So I should figure partner might or might not have a third heart. But if declarer has six hearts then he has five tricks in hearts and three in spades and the situation is desperate.
So small club. Declarer is 3=5=2=3. If he hops up we still prevail. Or at least we can.
Looking back, thinking of the danger of clubs going away on spades was thinking, of a sort, but as is often the case, it lacked follow-through thinking.
This hand is an example of what I hope can come out of playing the vugraph hands and being imped against the results there. We lost, I think, 13 on this board. It gets a person's attention. So I recommend this.
