If this split, that; if that split, this

Richard Dooling, a novelist and screenwriter, said, "Making money, it seems, is all about the velocity of moving it around, so that it can exist in Hong Kong one moment and Wall Street a split second later."

This deal has a split personality. If there is one particular split, declarer adopts line A; but if there is a different split, he follows line B. What are those splits and lines? Take several split seconds.

South is in four hearts. West cashes his three top diamonds, then shifts to the club 10, which is won by declarer's ace.

In the auction, North might have rebid three no-trump despite knowing about the 5-3 heart fit. That would have worked fine here.

Declarer has only nine winners: three spades, five hearts and one club. He must establish dummy's spade suit. However, to cash a long spade, South must have drawn trumps. But are the hearts splitting 3-2 or 4-1?

Declarer should draw two rounds of trumps, leaving a high honor in the dummy. If they break 4-1, South should cash dummy's third trump, play a spade to his king, draw the last trump, and hope spades are 3-3. If they are not, the contract was probably unmakable.

Here, though, hearts are 3-2. Declarer now plays a spade to his king, returns a spade to dummy's ace, ruffs a spade high in his hand, leads a heart to dummy's king, cashes the spade queen and spade six, discarding his low clubs, and claims.