A complicated “expert” auction. We do not know the meaning of South’s four-club bid, but we are sure it was brilliant. Whatever we think of the auction, North-South arrived in a reasonable slam contract, seeming to depend on the club finesse. Note that, assuming a heart lead, a three no trump contract would rely on the same finesse. South was Egyptian expert Tarek Sadek. He gave the opening trump lead a suspicious look and decided that the king of clubs was not well placed for him. He rose with dummy’s ace of clubs, cashed the ace of hearts, and ruffed a heart. He crossed to dummy with the ace of diamonds and ruffed dummy’s last heart. He then cashed three rounds of spades.

He had eliminated spades and hearts from both his hand and the dummy. Sadek exited with a club to East’s king, and East had an unpleasant choice between yielding a ruff-sluff or leading a diamond away from his queen. He chose to lead a diamond, of course, as his partner might have held the jack, or declarer might misguess holding the jack-nine. Sadek had no guess. He stepped up with his jack and landed his aggressive slam despite the king of clubs being offside. Well done!