[hautbois]

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West leads the 7♥, 3, 9, Q
J♣, 3, 2, A (3 is probably upside-down count)

Now what?

[nigel_k]

It looks like declarer has a stiff club so ten major suit cards which may be 5-5 or 6-4.

If declarer is 6-4 I don't think we can beat it. With the ♦A as a quick entry he surely would have started ruffing hearts. But if partner has the ♦A there is no room for him to have anything else given the pass of 1♠.

So I would assume declarer is 5-5. In that case the ♠J works as we can retain trump control and give partner a ruff after dummy's second trump is gone. ♥K will not work because declarer can duck. They ought to be defending 2♦X but even strong pairs sometimes don't get these right.

Also, given that the hand is posed as a problem, anyone who has read a sufficient number of books by Kelsey will be struck with an overwhelming urge to lead the ♠J at this point.

[gszes]

I agree with the spade J because if p has the dia A no matter if declarer is 64 or 55 we should easily

set this at least 1 with declarer scoring at most 5 spades and 2 hearts though if they are 64 I will

need p to hold the heart 8 but the opening lead is bothersome. Why would partner opt to lead a

speculative club when a heart (even from xx ) would seem like a logical choice given the bidding?

I think it is unreasonable to expect to have the dia A with this opening lead--a much more reasonable

idea might be p having Qx in hearts and not wanting to lead that holding. Oddly enough the spade J

back is still the right defense since we want to try and hold declarer to 5s 1h 1d.