This is aHand:

You bid ambitiously to what appears to be a hopeless contract.

Hopeless? Not a bit of it!

The cards lie exactly as you might expect... so how might you avoid four losers?

[This is a really tough hand. Take your time in playing it].

This beautiful hand comes from real life. Did declarer get it right at the table? You bet he did!

Bidding.

East Passes as dealer and we have an obvious opening bid of 1â™ 

West overcalls 2♥ and North competes with 2♠.

Well, we have an awkward call now. 4♠ is, frankly, something of an overbid, but that’s what was chosen at the time – so that’s what we have to do here.

4â™  it is.

Play.

West has a difficult lead and opts for the dangerous Ace and another Club. That, in most cases, would represent a poor choice but here it gets West off lead safely enough.

It’s time to Count and Plan.

Winners? Five Spades (on a 3-2 split), no Hearts (the Ace is sure to be over the King), three Diamonds and one Club. That’s nine.

Losers? No Spades (hopefully), two Hearts, no Diamonds and two Clubs.

Well, the arithmetic balances just fine – nine winners, four losers. Any attempt to set up the long Clubs is doomed to failure – East would take the Queen and fire a Heart through the vulnerable ♥K ×. That would be four losers before we could blink.

We need to go for a partial elimination.

We cash two rounds of trumps (relieved to see that West had two of them) and then cash three Diamonds, ending on table. The coup de grâce is remarkable – we play a Heart from dummy and finesse the Six!

West is on lead with the ♥7 but only has Hearts left. He cashes the Ace but has to play a third round of Hearts next. We trump in dummy and discard the last, losing Club from hand.

4♠ made, for the loss of two Hearts and the ♣A.

Postscript.

There is no defense to 4♠ on this deal. East might have played a desperate ♥8 at trick eight but we’d have covered with the King, forcing West to lead Hearts from his solid suit.

As the cards actually lie, a Heart to the King at  trick eight might have led to failure. West could have escaped the end-play by taking his Ace and leading the Seven of Hearts to his partner’s Eight. Would they have found that defense? Who knows?