I'll defend, altho I began by saying I'd play. The reasoning that led to 'I'll play' is as follows:
Win the lead, play a top
♠. This counter-intuitive play may cost us an extra trump trick.
RHO wins and cashes a top
♥...pitch a
♣.
Say RHO plays a small
♥, to promote a trump trick. Pitch a small
♦
LHO ruffs. Say he leads a
♦. Win, play a trump to hand, lead the
♣Q.
If he covers, win and play out all your trump, reducing West to
void
void
QJ
109
You hold x void xx J and dummy is void Ax xx.
When you lead your last trump, LHO is toast. If he pitches a
♣, throw a
♦, cash the
♣J and claim. If he pitches a
♦, you throw a club and claim.
If he ruffs the low
♥ and returns the
♣K, win and run the trump, again reducing to a crisscross position (you can cash an early
♦ to reduce to the same 4 card end game).
What if RHO doesn't coperate by leading a low
♥.. say he switches to a
♣ instead.
If LHO covers, we win in dummy and pull trump. We cross in
♦s and lead a
♥, pitching a small
♦.
Say RHO knocks out our last
♣. We run trump, reducing to a 3 card end position:
x void xx void with dummy being void void Ax x and LHO being void void QJ 10. Our last trump crushes him.
The same is true if RHO leads a
♦ rather than a club after cashing one top
♥.
I spent (wasted?) so much time on this that I got very frustrated when I realized that RHO needn't and probably shouldn't cash a top
♥. If he switches to
♦s, I think I'm screwed. I haven't thought through a
♣ switch yet, either.
The problem resolves to the same issues that made crossing in a minor at trick 2 ill-advised... we have timing and entry issues for the minor suit squeeze positions we need to inflict upon LHO... if RHO uses his entries to attack dummy's.
Anyway, I liked the crisscross positions
Even if I now think they won't work double-dummy.
BTW, I spend so much time on this that I began well before the other posts, and only saw Bhall's post once I had written all of the foregoing
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
S: 4S
(E opened 2H)
Lead: HK