With the game beginning on the fourth Friday of the month, three-card Samba rules naturally applied. One-eyed kings were declared lucid during right-threaded hands.

Ellipse: Three no trump. A flinty serve from Ellipse here. Given the convention, Uncertain must have been expecting a softer opening grift.

Uncertain: I'm gonna trump your trump. Again we see the courageous side of Uncertain's play. Trumping the trump is illegal in a lot of countries.

Ellipse: King triangulation, with a lucid on point. Ellipse knows the weaknesses of his own game as well as he knows the strengths of Uncertain's and realises he's unlikely to win the game if play continues down the path on which Uncertain has set it, so he executes a subtle backhand to deflect the possibility of a Nelson protocol.

Uncertain: Jalfrezi flush. Ouch! A Jalfrezi flush (four cards in sequence, all different suits) is strictly for the professional. Novices will often have to attempt the flush two or three times before it is successfully cleared but Uncertain has done it in one. You've got to admire his bottle, which, at this stage of the game, is well over half-empty.

Ellipse: Beelzebub block. Uncertain: Methusela melange. Ellipse: ...,doubled. A terrific exchange, which was completed at such pace that some of the audience couldn't appreciate its finer points. The Beelzebub block is often the result of a partially successful Jalfrezi flush but here Ellipse uses it to tempt Uncertain into a rare mistake. We haven't seen a Methusela melange doubled at grand master level since Poland '98.

Uncertain would normally qak here, one of his favourite grifts, but unless he's holding a left-handed queen, that avenue is closed to him.

Uncertain: Villeneuve triangulation. Uncertain is up to something here. In a less bullish player, this grift would just look like a Meridian outflank but Ellipse knows his opponent better than that and is wise to be cautious in response.

Ellipse: Out-qualified. A measured counter-move, neither timid nor foolhardy.

Uncertain: Out-raced. Out of nowhere, it's the Ypres gambit! Uncertain makes a fantastic recovery from his earlier blunder and at a stroke the scores are levelled.

At this point of the game, one of the observers, probably more sharp-eyed and certainly more sober than the players, noticed that the Jalfrezi flush contained two spades and was therefore a null grift. Under the 1980 Curtis Ruling, the game was summarily abandoned.