Posted 2021-February-07, 04:44
♠A and another spade, when declarer plays on trumps, win the king, put North in with a diamond (play a high one for suit preference), North returns a spade for you to ruff. You take two top tricks and two trumps. It looks like that is the only defence, on anything else declarer can play ace and another heart losing only one trump trick, then cross to dummy in clubs twice to run the high spade spots, holding his spade losers to one. The defence only get one heart, one spade, and one diamond.
Easy to see double dummy, not so easy at the table. You erred by cashing the ♦A which severs communication to your partner's hand so you can never get a ruff. There is no need to hurry in cashing your top tricks, declarer has no way of disposing of losers on long suits.
I have some sympathy with the East who went off in 3♥, he took a double finesse and both honors are offside, then on winning the second trump trick, South put North on lead to ruff a spade as in the defence suggested above. I'd call that unlucky. The other tables are just a case of someone cocking up and giving their opps a good result, it is like the train wreck hands that often come up at my club. You can't control what happens at other tables.