The Mistakes You Make at Bridge
by Terence Reese and Roger Trèzel revised by Ron Klinger

Cassell, £10.99 + p&p from The Bridge Shop Tel: 020 7486 8222

This is essentially a reprint of a book that first appeared more than twenty years ago when Reese and Trèzel wrote in tandem, but some changes in bidding theory, and to a lesser extent defensive ploys since then, have prompted Ron Klinger to produce this updated version.

This is how it works. Everyone makes mistakes, however grand you might be or however humble, but there are mistakes which are too terrible to contemplate, mistakes which are common but which need sorting out, and mistakes which the authors rather patronisingly refer to as 'forgivable'. And what is more you might - er, sorry, your partner might - make any one of these errors either in the bidding, the defence or in the play of the hand. This leads comfortably to the division of the book into three parts dealing with each of these categories in turn, with the addition of twenty problems on declarer play as a sort of grand finale. I know you'll get this one right, as you have bid confidently to 6:

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

West leads the K, so what do you do? Can you see it is right to play low from dummy at trick one? You ruff in hand and play two top trumps. If they break, you are home but if West started with Q-x-x, you can unblock the clubs and then throw him in with his trump to force him to give an entry to dummy where you have two black-suit winners to cash. If East started with Q-x-x in trumps, then you will probably be forced into taking the diamond finesse.

I thought this book was useful but then it always was, and I am not too sure that the update was really necessary or perhaps dealt with in the right way. I sometimes got the impression that Ron Klinger was desperate for anything new to say, especially in the section on bidding where I would have thought much could have been said about the use of negative doubles, which is one of the most significant advances in bidding theory since the original publication of this book. But that hardly gets a mention, while the idea of opening 3NT to ask for specific aces is investigated. Do you know anyone who plays that? No, neither do I and that's because it only occurs every 500 years. I would have to take issue too with some of the statements. What would you do if partner opened 2NT and you held this hand?

K J 8 6 2     J 10 3     Q 9     8 4 2

Klinger states that it is right to bid 3NT and produces an opening hand to show why, but I can produce one to show that 4 is the only makeable contract. My point is that it is impossible to be dogmatic about something like that.

Having said all that, this book will be really useful to those who are desperate to reach the next plateau of expertise. The ideas are well developed and the writing is impeccable whether it be Reese, Trèzel or Klinger. As I had lost my original copy, this is a very suitable substitute.

Dave Huggett

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