You are cold for a grand if diamonds break 3–3 and you may be cold for a grand if diamonds break 4–2 with East having the four or even if West has four diamonds with the odd trump. The point is that you should not draw the third trump because it costs nothing if you get overruffed in dummy. You can even survive some 5–1 diamond divisions.
Play the ♦K and ♦A and assuming both follow, lead a third diamond and ruff it low. If both follow, draw
the last trump and claim. if West follows to the third diamond and East overruffs dummy, you can still ruff another diamond in dummy and take the rest of the tricks. If West follows and East cannot overruff, you can return to your hand with a major-suit king, ruff another diamond, return to your hand with the other major suit king, draw the last trump and claim. If West shows out on the third diamond, you should be able to ruff two diamonds in dummy and take the rest of the tricks. So much for 3–3 or 4–2 diamond divisions.
Now it is time to deal with a possible 5–1 diamond division. A worst-case scenario finds West with five diamonds and East with the odd trump. Now assuming East doesn’t ruff air when you lead a second diamond towards your hand (if he does, you have the rest), you need to find West with 5–5 in the reds in order to organize a red-suit squeeze. Forget that. If West is 5–5 in the reds with two clubs and one spade it means that East has passed 1♥ with seven spades. At favorable! At matchpoints! And West did not lead a singleton spade! Sure.
When East has five diamonds, however, you could be in business. Say you play the ♦K and a diamond to the ace, West ruffs and gets out with a spade. You win the king, ruff a diamond, return to the ♥K, ruff a diamond with dummy’s last trump, cash the ♥A and ruff a heart leaving:
You know that East has the odd diamond and you need West to have the odd heart, so assume he has it. If so, each opponent has two spades. When you play the ♣10, West must discard
a spade to keep the heart winner, and you discard dummy’s now worthless heart. Now it’s East’s turn to discard. East dare not discard the master diamond, so East discards a spade as well. Don’t look now, but both of dummy’s spades are good!
