Taking a look

This bridge deal is from the local club last night (Tuesday). I didn't play in the game, but heard about it. You hold:
♠Q 10 8 6 4 2 ♥ --- ♦Q ♣A K 8 6 5 4.

Your left-hand opponent passes, partner bids 1♦ and your RHO bids 2♥. You bid 2♠ and your LHO bids 3♥. Partner raises to 3♠ and the opponents are silent from here on. What would you do?

There is often no right or wrong way to bid freaks, so the player who held this hand bid 6♠. West led the ♥8 and this is what you see:

                ♠ A K J
                ♥ K J 5 2
                ♦ K 9 6 5 2
                ♣ 10
==>
                ♠ Q 10 8 6 4 2
                ♥ ---
                ♦ Q
                ♣ A K 8 6 5 4

After an inelegant auction, you arrived at a pretty good contract. The dummy is good news and bad news. The excellent trump support is the good news. The wasted ♥ K J is the bad news.

Declarer played low from dummy and ruffed the heart. He played the ♣A and ruffed a club. Now in the dummy, he led a low diamond to his queen and West's ace. Another heart was led. He ruffed this, ruffed one more club (both opponents following) and cashed the ♠A. East showed out and the contract fell apart.

Here are all four hands:

                ♠ A K J
                ♥ K J 5 2
                ♦ K 9 6 5 2
                ♣ 10
♠ 9 7 5 3                    ♠ ---
♥ 8 7 3                      ♥ A Q 10 9 6 5
♦ A J 7                      ♦ 10 8 4 3
♣ Q 7 2                      ♣ J 9 3
                ♠ Q 10 8 6 4 2
                ♥ ---
                ♦ Q
                ♣ A K 8 6 5 4

Declarer had a sure diamond loser, so couldn't afford a club loser. The mistake he made was that he didn't know how many clubs he had to ruff to set up the suit. A better line would be (at tricks two and three) to cash the ♣A K. Now, when he ruffs a club, he sees they split 3-3 and he can begin drawing trumps. The opponents can shorten his trump holding one more time, but he is in control.

Yes, clubs could be 5-1 and East might ruff the ♣K. If that happens, however, you weren't making the contract anyway.

East preempted and South had a 6-6 freak, but look at West. He had a perfectly normal 4=3=3=3 hand! Isn't that odd?