Bridge books reviewed - 1

"Matchpoint Tricks" by B. Axelsen and Villy Dam is a collection of declarer play problems at duplicate pairs, the most common form of competitive bridge. How do you manufacture that vital overtrick? Can you do it legitimately, or if not, can you give the opponents a chance to go wrong?

"Play of the Hand" by Louis H Watson, one of the first and formost authorities on contract bridge, is regarded as the classic sxposition of playing strategy. Practically all variations of play, both declaring and defence, are clearly illustrated.

"The Outline of Contract Bridge" by Louis Watson and Sam Sloan is aimed at the player who has not played for a while and is very rusty. It's best to read this book before "Play of the Hand" for the simple reason that it is short enough (149 pges) to digest.

SAYC - Standard American Yellow Card, is the most popular bridge bidding used over the internet. This book by Ned Downey and Ellen Pomer discusses it in detail and points out the one or two differences from commonly used Standard American.

Sally Brock takes all the famous BOLS series of bridge tips and puts them together in one book The result: a perfect pot pourri of advice for players of every standard written by the world's best bridge players.

Eddie Kantar is undoubtedly the acknowledged expert on the Roman Keycard Blackwood convention. This fourth edition of his book is very complex and really only suitable for advanced/expert players. For example, he advocates playing 1430 when the stronger hand asks and playing 3014 when the weaker asks - wow!!

This is the fifth (and according to the author, the very last - but don't hold your breath!) edition of what is acknowledged to be the definitive book on a convention that every serious player uses. Completely revised and updated from the previous version, this newest version contains even more leading-edge ideas, and is full of examples, quizzes and practice hands. A must for the tournament player.

"Declarer Play the Bergen Way" teaches you about end-plays, avoiding losing finesses, developing long suits, making the most of your entries, when to count winners in a suit contract, squeezes, how to know whether to draw trumps first, and much more.

In "More Declarer play the Bergen Way" Marty Bergen teaches you how to give yourself an extra chance to make the hand; when to draw only some of the opponents' trumps; how to win extra tricks with nines and tens; how to create entries when they are most needed; the right time to throw a loser on a loser and much more!

"New Revised Summary of the Precision System" by Catherine Wei outlines the key bids and responses in the Precision system. Plus notes on a four-session training method to develop an expert Precision partnership.

"Precision Bridge" by Eric Jannersten was origionally published in 1972. Eric Jannersten is one of Europe's leading bidding theorists and this book gives a complete description of the basic precision club system. The book is 224 pages which includes a 75 page advanced section featuring Italian methods.

"The Complete Italian System of Winning Bridge" by Edgar Kaplan. The only book that includes the Neopolitan club system, the Roman club system and the Standard italian system. Plus the official methods of defending against all three systems.

"At the Table" is more of a novel than a collection of deals. It's interesting because Bob Hamman has been the best bridge player for many years and has played in so many world championships and national events. History-wise the best part of the book is the Italian foot-tapping scandal at the 1975 Bermuda Bowl.

"The Roman Club system of distributional bidding " by Giorgio Belladonna, translated by Vee Packer. The Roman Club system, although used very effectively by the Italian Blue Team and others, was never popular here in the United States. Part of the reason is that it was outlawed in many events. I think the proper response to that is to play bridge exclusively in events where such a logical system is allowed.
This is by no means an ideal bidding system. But it is a very good one. No, there was no information theory analysis done to make best use of bidding room. But I still like it. It has been around for about fifty years, and it is high time for it to be accepted everywhere.
With balanced distributions, points are the most important. With 12-16, you bid an artifical one club. 17-20 is one no trump. And with 21-26 you bid one club, but jump on the second round to show that you do not have the 12-16 one club. One diamond is an artificial negative response to one club.
When you want to play in a suit contract, distribution is more important than points. Those of us who know the law of total tricks realize that points are truly secondary to knowing the number of trumps each side has. In this system, you play canape, which means bidding the shorter suit first and the longer one second. If you have long hearts with diamonds as your second suit, you open one diamond. After a one heart response, one no trump shows long hearts and a weak hand, two hearts shows long hearts and a strong hand, and three hearts is like a reverse, long hearts and a very strong hand.
When your second suit is clubs, you have a problem, because the one club opening is taken. So with hearts and clubs, you open two hearts, with spades and hearts, you open two spades. With diamonds and clubs, you open two no trump! With all these suit openers, you count losers as well as points (losers are at least as important). Opening bids of two clubs and two diamonds are used to describe three-suited hands.
Slam bidding has a Roman twist, the infamous Roman Asking Bids (often mispronounced "Roaming Ashcan Bids"). These bids ask about controls in a specific suit. The response tells everyone at the table whether a suit is wide open or not. Blackwood is, of course, replaced by Roman Blackwood.
I know most folks will strongly disagree with me, but I think this is an ideal system for total beginners, not just World Champions. The authors tend to support this, noting that for beginners, errors in judgment are more frequent than lapses of memory. This system gives one less leeway than most others, which is a good idea!
The book concludes with some useful quizzes, followed by some excellent examples of the Roman Club in action in World Championship play.
Or buy from Amazon.co.uk.

"The New Awakening: An Improved Bidding System In Bridge" by Bob Gish presents the Precision club player with a wealth of new ideas to improve their bidding.

"The Phoney Club: Cleveland Club System" by David Marsh-Smith describes a bidding system based on an artificial club opening, allowing the bidders to make an easy distinction between four-card and longer suits.

Since its publication in 1992, "To Bid or Not to Bid" as sold over 50,000 copies. Undoubtedly the best selling bridge book of the 1990s, its lucid exposition of the Law of Total Tricks has made it a book that literally every serious bridge player simply has to read.

"Following the Law", the sequel to"To Bid or Not to Bid" was publishes in 1994, and took the basic concepts explained in the first book to a higher level, while giving many practical examples from expert play of how to use the Law of Total tricks correctly. Both books are must-reads for every improving - advanced bridge player.