The Golden Rules for Rubber Bridge Players
by Julian Pottage

Cassell / Peter Crawley, £10.99, ISBN 0 304 36804 0

You are an experienced duplicate player, short of money for a much-needed holiday to Thailand, and are hoping to earn a few hundred quid playing rubber bridge in a London Club. Will this book teach you the differences between duplicate and rubber bridge, launching you on your way to Phuket? No! That is not the book's intention at all. It is a general manual on bridge as a whole, aimed at social players who happen to play the game in a rubber bridge setting. No advice specific to rubber bridge tactics is given until page 129 out of 160.

The first 62 Golden Rules address sound Acol bidding on a weak no-trump base. In keeping with the rubber bridge theme, a double of an overcall is for penalties rather than take-out and there is no mention of transfer responses to 1NT. The writing is very clear and it would be hard to find a more concise and accurate description of sensible all-round bidding. Of course, there is a lot to explain in 60 pages, when the topics include responding to a take-out double, the Lightner Double and slam bidding with cue-bids. Many whole books have been written on the material that is covered.

The next 9 Golden Rules give some accurate advice on opening leads, including Rule 69: You tend to attack a suit small slam, trying to set up a quick winner, but a passive lead is the norm against 6NT. Yes, indeed! How many times do you see beginners giving declarer a trick by leading from something like Q-10-x-x-x against 6NT?

The next 27 rules cover the main elements of declarer play, such as counting, holding up a stopper and establishing suits. This is all important stuff and clearly explained with examples. There are then 22 rules on defence, addressing topics such as finessing against the dummy and not overruffing from a natural trump winner. The last 14 rules give specific advice for bidding at rubber bridge, such as Rule 128: If your bid suffices for game, you can make a two-over-one response slightly lighter than usual if you have a good suit, and a 1NT response may be a bit stronger than normal.

The book ends with some sample deals that comprise four rubbers. Test yourself on this one:

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

You open 2NT and raise East's 4NT to 6NT. How will you play when North leads the J? Pottage explains that you must combine your chances in the black suits. Ace, king and another spade would result in immediate defeat if spades divided 4-2, so play the A and duck a spade. If the suit does not break 3-3, you will take the club finesse. (If a spade honour falls from South under the ace, you should lead the second spade from the East hand. You can then discover Q-J, Q-10 or J-10 doubleton in time, winning the second round and leading back towards the 9. True you might pay out to a false card from Q-J-10-8 when the Q was onside all along!)

You get the idea, then. A massive amount of sound advice on all areas of the game is packed into a single 160-page volume. If four rubber bridge enthusiasts were going to spend two weeks on some deserted Thai island - with just palm trees, monkeys and a pack of cards for company - this would be an excellent book to take with them.

David Bird

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