52 Great Bridge Tips on Declarer Play
by David Bird

Batsford, £13.20 inc p&p from the Mr Bridge Mail Order Service Tel 01672 519219 (code BK33)

It constantly surprises me that such a prolific author as David Bird can come up with so many fresh ideas. This latest book follows on from his 52 Great Bridge Tips but is devoted solely to declarer play and attempts - very successfully, I must say - to break down various play gambits into fifty-two bite-size chunks. So I suppose you could learn one a week and be the best declarer-player in the world after a year!

Some of the tips are fairly obvious and well known but quite a few are not, and the following one is something I had never given too much thought to (to my shame): 'Finesse the overcaller's partner for the trump queen'. What does that mean? Basically if you have a nine-card fit in a trump suit but are missing the queen, it is marginally better to play for the drop of the missing lady. Everybody knows that but, when one of the opposition has overcalled, things change. You might say: 'West bid, so he is more likely to have the missing queen', but that reasoning is facile. A doubleton queen in the opponents' suit is not much of an asset, and a more compelling argument for the soundness of the tip is that as the overcaller has at least a five-card suit there are fewer 'spaces' for him to hold length in your suit.

I liked this tip too, called 'Look for the bad break that can hurt you'. Now that I've given you a clue there is no excuse to go wrong on this deal:

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

You are South in 6 and receive the lead of the Q. How would you play?

If you play A-K and then ruff a heart in dummy, East might overruff and return a trump to put you two down. If you think about it, it must be better to play a low heart towards the jack at trick two. If West has the Q, you will gain an entry to dummy for the A and if East has it you have lost nothing but must now hope that hearts divide 4-3, which was what you were hoping for in the first place when you just tried to ruff a heart. I think that's neat. The full deal is:

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

It goes without saying with this author that the explanations are clear and the writing witty, and there is something for everybody - even if you think you know it all. There are many good tips in this book; to find out about the rest of them just put your hand in your pocket and fork out £11.99 plus postage. You won't regret it.

Dave Huggett

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