Planning Notrump Contracts (1-894154-76-2)
Endplays and Coups (1-894154-77-0)
Entry Management (1-894154-75-4)
all by David Bird and Tim Bourke

Master Point Press, £6.99 each, www.masterpointpress.com

This trilogy provides a worthy addition to the Test Your Bridge Technique series. All three books look at the subject matter from declarer's point of view (some of the next batch will deal with defence). The format for each book is a brief introductory section and then thirty-six problems with answers in groups of four. I think this concept works well, especially because the examples themselves, the analysis, and the narrative are all first class.

The titles of the three books are largely self- explanatory, though I might point out that there was an earlier book in the series on elimination play. The book on endplays and coups therefore deals with throw-in plays in which the ruff-and-discard element is absent (perhaps because it is a no-trump contract), and with trump coups and elopements. Apart from perhaps the last quarter of each book, the difficulty level is within the range of material you might find in Bridge Plus.

Here is an example taken from Entry Management:

9 5 4 2     Q 10 9     9 7 6     K 6 4     A K Q J 10 8     A J 4     K 3     8 5

You reach 4 with no opposing bidding. West, unfortunately, leads the Q. You duck this and the J continuation, and East plays the A on the third round. How should you play from here?

With the A offside, you need to find East with the K and the A. This way you can hope to hold your losses to two clubs and one diamond. Since the only obvious entry to dummy is the 9, you ruff the club high and draw trumps ending in dummy. It would be wrong now to lead a diamond. How would you ever get back to dummy to take the heart finesse? It must be right to lead a heart. Suppose you try the 10. What happens then? It is no good: East ducks the 10, covers the Q and you are stuck in hand. The solution is to lead the Q and, if East ducks, unblock the J. If the 10 holds the next trick, the lead remains in dummy, while if East plays the king, you can cross back to the nine.
The full deal is illustrated below.

9 5 4 2   Q 10 9   9 7 6   K 6 4     7   8 5 3   Q J 5 4 2   Q J 10 3   6 3   K 7 6 2   A 10 8   A 9 7 2     A K Q J 10 8   A J 4   K 3   8 5

Julian Pottage

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