That's not too bad, Jimmy, as long as you are in
hand when the defence duck the second Club. If you're in Dummy (as Samet was) you have no ability to cash
any Diamonds, because you're no entries left back to hand. Moreover, you need to cash only
two Diamonds, not 3, because you don't know at that stage who has the Ace of Clubs. Cashing a 4th Diamond brings you down to a singleton Spade in Dummy and now when you concede a Club, the defence might be in a position to cash 2 Diamonds and 2 Spades.
Seriously, given the 2
overcall by East missing all 4 top honours in the suit, is it conceivable that they have
less than a 5 or 6-card suit? Would you really overcall
vulnerable on
10xxx when RHO has made a 2/1 response?
As I said before, your duty as Declarer at
any form of IMP scoring is to play 100% safe for the contract you're in rather than trying for overtricks. Suppose West started with
AKQx,
-,
10xxxxx,
Axx. On
your line, you're cashing all your Diamonds (again what are you going to discard from Dummy on the
last Diamond?), before exiting with the Club. If you chuck a Spade, I'll take my Ace of Clubs, two long Diamonds and 2 Spade tricks. If you chuck a top Heart, you're giving up any chance for your overtrick right away. It's a million miles safer to
establish your Spade trick
first, then cross back to hand to the Jack of Clubs. If nobody takes the Ace, cash only
2 Diamonds, throwing losing Hearts from Dummy, and
now play a second Club. On this line you are absolutely 100% for 9 tricks whether Opps take the second Club or not,
because you've already established your 9th trick in the Spade suit.
No Trump technique 101 is to
establish tricks before
cashing easy winners elsewhere. Here the reason for cashing 2 Diamonds (and
only two Diamonds), is
solely to remove Dummy's losing Hearts so that the line of defence East chose is not open to them. Cashing a
4th Diamond trick (and the 3rd
will show the Diamonds are 6-2 even if you hadn't anticipated that probability from the bidding) gains you
nothing, gives up your control of the Diamond suit, and gives you an awkward discard from Dummy. No point.