Assuming North finds a passive lead there is no way for West to bring in 4S without the assistance of south, but first let's have a look at the bidding. Opposite an opening of 1S the only logical response is 1NT, and some Wests will have felt they have heard enough and bid 4♠. I prefer 3♠ because it gives East a chance to evaluate the prospects given the likely dangers of poor communications. In any event it is hard to see this contract ending anywhere else than 4♠.

North has an unappetising choice of leads, personally I favour a neutral spade, but what is for sure is that a diamond or a club will hand declarer the contract. So how about a heart, interestingly enough this proves effective, and doubly so if declarer is lured into running the lead round to the Queen as now the dummy is dead. In any case who is going to lead from the ♥K? So up with the Ace and try the Queen of Diamonds. If south is tempted to insert the ♦K it is all over for the defence. Declarer wins with the Ace and plays spades until North eventually wins with the Jack.

When declarer regains the lead he can now finesse the ♦9 which proves the old adage that you should only cover an honour with an honour when there is something to promote, which in this case there is not.

The frequency of a grand slam is rare – less than 1 in a hundred. Small slams occur with comparative abundance. In a normal evening of duplicate bridge you would expect at least one per session and every other session two. Amazingly out of the 27 boards in play in this year’s Centenary cup there were no less than 5 slams one of which (hand 10) qualified for grand status. Yet only one pair found their way to bidding it and in doing so netted the 10 imps for their team. Andrew Kisiel rarely missus the opportunity to go for the max and so it was in this case.

When East opens, west needs to invent a bid and 2♣ allows east to show 16+ and a 4 card suit. From West's point of view with 9 cards now accounted for, it is now a question of the construction of the black suits. 2♠ is 4th suit forcing and now 2NT by East eith shows Kx or QJx. If the holding is Kx you can count 13 tricks and Blackwood provides the answers.