Moments of Truth at the Bridge Table
by R. Jayaram

BT Batsford, £10.99, ISBN 0 7134 8879 4

The world's largest democracy, India, is generally under-represented in popular culture and in bridge literature, and we should welcome this addition to the list of books available to interested readers. Concentrating mainly on declarer play, the author presents a series of tales involving leading Indian players in tricky situations. He covers each hand in depth, using one hundred and sixty pages for thirty-nine deals. He aims to explain the thought processes behind the player's actions and usually finishes with a philosophical reflection. Often he takes you through the problems and decisions faced by the player at the table, and only presents the full deal once the play is over.

It is hard to put my finger on the reason, but this book did not excite me. Maybe I was looking for a link between one deal and the next and finding none, and at times the author seemed to be caught in two minds about whether to focus on the players or on the deals themselves. However, bearing in mind that Moments of Truth is only the second book for this author, he could have a bright future. In general the choice of subject material is reasonable, the analysis sound and the explanations credible. I hesitate to comment about the layout, but I have to say that giving the reader's hand in the middle of a sentence (albeit only occasionally) and with no space around seems less than ideal.

Several of the hands contain instructive features and this is one example:

Q 8 4 2   K   10 9 6 5 2   J 8 6   A 9 5   A Q 10 9 8 2   A K   K 5

Partner has overbid (something that happens quite often in the book!) and you, South, are in 5. West leads a trump - good news since now only East might hold jack to four trumps. Winning in dummy, you cross to hand with a diamond at trick two and draw the remaining trumps, relieved to find the 3-3 break. How should you continue?

Superficially, you need West to hold the K and East the A. Can you see any extra chances? If West holds K-x-x and fails to hold up the king, a long spade will take care of a possible club loser. Alas, you are playing in the finals of the 2003 Indian Team Selection Trials and do not expect the defender on your left to commit such an error. Perhaps, however, West might be subject to an endplay. Declarer, K.R. Venkataraman ('Venky' to his friends), cashed his other top diamond and then played ace and another spade. Poor West, who had started with K-x and three diamonds, had no safe exit: a diamond would set up dummy's suit (with the Q as an entry) while a club would resolve the position in that suit.

Julian Pottage

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