This hand has continued to nag me at odd moments, which makes it, for me, a great hand.
I had thought that maybe Fluffy's initial thought, of playing on spades first, might be best, but then:
At trick 3, spade to the A and a spade back....RHO wins and plays a 3rd spade.
Now, when we play a club up, if LHO has the A, he pops and leads the 13th spade....we have to ruff in dummy, since pitching lets RHO pitch and we have to ruff from KQ7. But when we ruff, rho throws a club, as do we.
Now we play a heart, RHO covers and we are in our hand. We play a club perforce, and rho ruffs. He exits a diamond and we are stuck in our hand...we can't get to dummy to pick up the trump.
So we unblock the diamond A first?
Say we do it at trick 3 then play on spades.....rho wins the spade K as before and clears spades. LHO flies with the club A and plays the 13th spade, and rho pitches a club.
Now we play a heart, covered and won in hand.....rho ruffs our club play and what can he lead?
The position is fascinating if we haven't been really careful in trump. Say we ruffed the spade low and hadn't unblocked under the A at trick 2.
we'll have something like:
We have already lost 3 tricks....RHO exits the low trump...which we have to win in dummy, but now RHO ruffs the forced club.
So, if we place LHO with 4=0=6=3, with club A:
At trick 3 we play the diamond A, and then on spades as above. When LHO exits the 13th spade, ruff high in dummy and then lead the heart 8 to force the cover (well, it may not be forced, but it does RHO no good to duck). Then play as above, with the difference being that RHO can't endplay us in dummy in the 3 card ending.
But if rho holds the club A.....I don't think he can beat us on this lie.
So: my line is to play on spades, and be careful, if needed, to unblock in trump.
However, I am writing this while drinking my morning coffee and don't have time to think about it any more, at least for a few hours
'one of the great markers of the advance of human kindness is the howls you will hear from the Men of God' Johann Hari
gnasher writes "West leads ♦5 (4th best) to 10, J and Q. You cash ♥A and LHO throws ♦2 (standard remaining count). Once you've finished thinking about whether you should have bid it differently, how do you play? West could not have opened a weak 2♦, in case it matters."
My guess: ♦Q, ♥A, ♦A , ♠A, ♠ to ♠Q, ♣.