Directing a bust

Because the director of our club was thinking of playing in the Nationals in Phoenix, he asked me to take the ACBL director's test so that I could fill in for him.  I did, and as a certified director of 3 weeks' standing, I showed up to direct this Wednesday's club game.

Well, some sort of word must have gone out. Three of our regulars are in Phoenix. Another bowed out at the last minute. A quartet we can normally count on didn't show up.  Long story short, only 8 players showed up. Well, we can't do a 2-table game (the minimum movement is a 3-table Howell), so I gave them the option of playing an imps cross-teams.  One of the eight said he was not interested and went home, so I played with his partner.

We played 12 boards with the teams (initials only):
     (A) Lak + P, J+C  vs.  (B) A+L, M+B
Then, we switched and played 12 boards with the teams configured as:
     (C) Lak+P, A+L   vs.  (D) J+C, M+B
My team won the first match, and tied the second.  Overall, it turned out to be quite a fun evening.

P. normally plays Precision, so that was what we decided we would play. We had no time to fill out a convention card and so we decided to  "just play bridge".  It was going fine, until we ran into a pickle on this hand.

I was South and opened a precision 1H (11-15, 5+ hearts).  West preempted, North doubled. I assumed that was takeout and showed cards.

W

West

N

North

E

East

S

South

—

—

—

1♥

3♦

Dbl

Pass

3♠

4♦

4♠

Pass

4NT

Pass

5♦

Pass

5♥

Pass

5♠

Pass

6♠

All Pass

I was 6-5 in hearts and spades, so I bid 3S and partner raised me to 4.  My hand was too good to pass 4S, so I bid 4NT (5D should probably be exclusion, but we had not discussed this).  Partner responded 5D (1 keycard). Assuming that the keycard was not the Ace of diamonds, I asked about the queen of trumps. If he had responded King of Clubs, I'd have bid the grand but as it was, I contented myself with bidding 6S.

West led the Ace of diamonds (Ace from AK) and this was the hand that partner had:

N

North

♠

J9xx

♥

Qx

♦

xx

♣

KQxxx

Lead: ♦A

S

Lak

♠

K10xxx

♥

AKx xxx

♦

—

♣

Ax

Oops.

Partner thought we were playing 1430. His 5D was zero keycards, not one.

Anyway, assume that you are in 6S.  Can you make it?

Yes, if West has a singleton spade honor.  If she has the singleton Ace, then I can pick it up by playing low from both hands and finessing the queen on the second round.  If she has the singleton Queen, I need to plop down the king and then give up a spade trick.  What's more likely?

I decided that with a singleton Ace, West would have had 11 points and was more likely to bid 2D than to preempt 3D.  So, I played her for the singleton Queen.

Success! Plus 1430.

Our opponents got fixed, but they were quite gracious about it.