Defence problems

A few hands involving whether to return partner's suit or switch to a new suit. We also look at overtaking and interpreting count signals. These are the links to allow you to replay these hands: 1. You win the first trick. As you have control of the diamond suit, the right play is to continue spades. You plan to knock out the only entry to dummy, and then hold up your ace of diamonds https://tinyurl.com/y55o97zy 2. That suit in dummy is likely to run, (declarer or partner has QD) so switch to dummy’s weakness http://tinyurl.com/ny84e3a (Down 1). There is a clue from the bidding to attack clubs rather than hearts. 3. With that long suit in dummy, switch to a heart to knock out dummy’s entries http://tinyurl.com/k8jufkf 4. East starts by signalling encouragement, but then must overtake in order to lead into dummy’s weakness http://tinyurl.com/ycj9e23x 5. Similar to (1). http://tinyurl.com/y5xnvnxv Once you duck the first diamond, declarer can see he will not be able to run the suit, so may switch to hearts. 6. There is only one trick available to the defence, so overtake and lead into dummy’s weakness http://tinyurl.com/m3ceybx