Phantom Sack by Foxymoron

 My partner set out a road map which suggested the winning defence on the following hand, but I felt that it was unlikely to work and ended up with a phantom sack. This phrase comes from American football where a Rams player, Jim Everett, playing against the 49ers, collapsed in a heap even though he had not been tackled. In bridge its full name is phantom sacrifice where you deliberately go for a penalty hoping it is less than the game that you could beat.

I should just defend here, and partner's imaginative pre-empt of 3C should have told me how to defend. I can cash the ace and king of diamonds and then underlead the ace and king of clubs to get a diamond ruff. Fortunately that defence was not found at the other table where 4H was bid and made so we emerged with an undeserved average.

Vampyr wondered if declarer would guess the QS if we did not find this defence. Say South leads the ace of clubs and then cashes the top diamonds and plays another club. Declarer will ruff and run all the trumps throwing spades from dummy. Now he will make the contract whenever the diamonds are 3-3, whenever the queen of spades drops or when the queen of spades is with the long diamonds, so I think he will in practice. I had hopes of 5C doubled making opposite something like Ax x xxxx QJxxxx which is a more standard pre-empt, but as Bob Hamman says, "Don't play me for perfect cards; I never have them".