Deceptive Play (ISBN 1-894154-83-5), Reading the Cards (ISBN1-894154-81-9),
Defending Notrump Contracts (ISBN 1-894154-82-7),
by David Bird and Tim Bourke

Master Point Press, US$9.95 each from www.masterpointpress.com

Each of these three books is designed to accompany its equivalent subject matter in the Bridge Technique series (books 5, 10, 11) and as such are little more than a collection of problems - 36 in each case. At the beginning of each volume there are a few pages introducing the basic concepts involved and I am sure that at least some of these ideas will be new to many readers. Deceptive plays are fun because with a bit of luck you are making the opposition believe something which isn't true, and it is highly gratifying when the desired outcome comes about. As a taster how would you play 4 after the opposition have bid and supported spades and the Q is led?

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

Barring some sort of blockage it looks as though you have four losers once the opposition win the A, but they may have to find the diamond switch. How can you point them in the wrong direction?

Try playing the second spade at once discarding the 5 from hand. Then when you lose the lead in trumps they may well attack clubs because you have offered up a scenario which just isn't true. Mind you, you will still need clubs to be favourable but I think you would deserve to be lucky!

Reading the cards is a very difficult matter because it is so easy to overlook something small which might make all the difference to the play. Many people might start out in the right direction on the next deal but they could well fall at the final hurdle:

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

You reach 6NT in two bids and West leads the 7. With eleven tricks on top once the A has been removed, you have to discover who has the Q and you might reason - correctly - that the defender with the most hearts is more likely to hold the queen. But just suppose that during the course of the play you not only discover that clubs break 3-3 but can divine that hearts do as well. No good, you might think, but you would be wrong!

If West held three low hearts as well as three worthless clubs the Principle of Restricted Choice states that he might equally have led a heart initially and the only reason he did not was because he had a heart holding he did not want to lead away from. Therefore you play West for the Q!
The problems in all three of these volumes are well thought out and the explanations are clear and in some cases amusing, as you might expect from the authors. Whatever your standard, you can be sure to learn something to your advantage.

Dave Huggett

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