[ralph23]

Scoring: IMP

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South opens 1NT and North raises to 3NT. You are told that 1NT opening shows 15-17 HCP.

Your lead method is 4th best from long suit.

Partner leads the 6 of ♦, dummy plays low and you play the Jack. Declarer takes the King.

He then leads a low ♣ from his hand and partner plays the Jack. Declarer takes dummy's King and returns the 7 of ♣, and it's your play.

What do you discard, and more importantly, why ?

{NB - Sorry Harald, got a phone call in the middle and had to quit for a minute! I think it's complete now . )

[skjaeran]

I refuse to make a discard without knowing the bidding and play!
I can only guess that someone played a couple of rounds of ♣'s....

[goobers]

This seems fairly obvious, declarer has no more diamond stops (you know by rule of 11), so pitch the DQ and let partner run his suit.

[jtfanclub]

Spoiler

Rule of 11: 11-6= 5 cards higher than the 6 outside of partner's hand.

I can see the QJ97 when dummy faces, and the K played on the first trick. So partner has all the remaining high diamonds, besides my queen. He led from AT86(x)

Here's the problem...if throw my Q of diamonds, partner will run the diamonds, but where is the setting trick? Partner could easily have something like Kxx in hearts and Qxx in spades, and leading either one will give up the contract.

So, I will sluff a discouraging spade. Hopefully, partner will continue diamonds, I'll take it with the Queen, and shoot a heart back, setting up the setting trick. But later, it will turn out that partner had 5 diamonds. Go figure.

[ralph23]

Excellent goobers. Now part deux: Suppose East instead discards a small (discouraging) ♠.

West will win his Queen of ♣ either on this trick or the next, depending on whether declarer takes his Ace this time (at trick 2) or ducks trick 2 to your partner. {NB -- You must assume your partner voluntarily split his ♣ honors. Which is more likely than his having been dealt QJ tight, and besides, if he was dealt only 2 clubs, it doesn't look very good for the good guys.... }

What do you think West should lead in this case ? And why ?