East's 1NT was 15-17, and West transferred into spades, then rebid hearts, a game-forcing sequence. East could hardly bid 3NT with no club stopper, so he showed his values were mainly in diamonds. West had no interest in slam, and signed off in 4H.

North led out ace-king-jack of clubs, and declarer ruffed. Following the adage: high cards from the short hand first – he cashed the ace and queen of hearts. When North showed out on the second heart he was in trouble. He turned to spades as a possible source of tricks, but when he finessed the queen North won. Since there was an inevitable trump loser, he went one down. Can you do better?

After ruffing the third club you can count three more hearts, five diamonds and a spade. If hearts break 3-2 there are no problems: you can draw trump and discard all your losing spades on dummy's diamonds, making eleven tricks. So consider the possibility of a 4-1 trump break, which may leave you cut off from dummy's diamonds. The answer to your problem is simple enough: cash the king of hearts, then lead to the queen. If everybody follows, finish playing trump, then run diamonds. If somebody shows you can start on diamonds right away. When the defender with the long trump ruffs you can win the return and cross to the ace of hearts, drawing the last trump, to make the rest of the diamonds.

The reason for playing high cards from the short hand first is to allow you to run a suit without blocking it. When that suit is trump you probably have no intention of running it, so it will not matter if it is blocked. It is much more important to keep trump entries in the hand where you may need them.