[ralph23]

♣♦♥♠

Scoring: IMP

South opens 1NT and North raises to 3NT. EW are silent.

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You are told that the 1NT opening shows 15-17 HCP. NB - North chose not to use Stayman with 4333 distribution.

You and partner play 4th best leads from a long suit.

Partner leads the 6 of ♥ and dummy plays the Jack. You cannot beat the Jack so an "attitude" signal (the usual variety to partner's opening lead) is meaningless; partner will know that you don't have any large ♥. So do the next best thing, and give count (hi-lo with an even number) by playing the 7. This may help partner, or it may not.

Declarer's Jack wins trick one, and declarer now leads the 3 of ♣ from the board. What is your plan, and why ?

[skjaeran]

I give count at trick 1. It might help partner later.

As for the defence:

Spoiler

I'll go in with the ♣K. This might be vital if partner holds the ace and we need to establish the ♥'s from my side. Give declarer ♥KTx from the start and I need to play like this to beat it. If I duck, partner might set up his ♥'s, but I'll be out of ♥'s when I later gain the lead.

[SoTired]

Spoiler

Rise with ♣K and lead a heart. Actually, Declarer having ♥K10x is not a problem holding because if partner has the ♣A, we will get in later with the ♣K to lead a heart. The holding that we are more worried about is ♥AQx or ♥KQx. Declarer's hand is something like Axx AQx Axx QJxx or Axx KQx Axx QJxx. If declarer has one of these hands, declarer has 8 tricks and needs a club for 9. We have to lead a heart with our entry and partner uses their entry to run the hearts.

That is a general guideline. When defending NT, the partner of the long suit tries to get in first to lead partner's long suit, so that the long suit holder can retain entries to run the long suit.

As declarer, you try to force the long suit holder to use up their entries first.