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| Bridge Lessons (Finesse, Overcall, Double) Andrew Robson Bridge Club, £4.99 each from The Bridge Shop. Tel: 020 7486 8222 As I'm sure most of you know, Andrew Robson, as well as being one of the world's best players, is also a teacher of high standing and bridge correspondent of the Times, and these hands are taken from his Wednesday column for less experienced players. These three booklets deal with some of the fundamentals of the game and in case you think that thirty-six hands dealing with the Finesse is rather too much, then take it from me that it isn't! Students may know it, even understand it, but it takes ages for beginners to do it (in case it doesn't work!) So all kinds of finessing are dealt with here: the straightforward A-Q kind, the ruffing finesse, the compound finesse - and yes! - even the intra finesse. Each hand is preceded by a preamble about the technique under discussion, then comes an actual deal supposedly taken from real life. How would you do on this one?
You play as South in 3NT after West has opened 1 I bet you know because I've given you a clue! With only eight top tricks, you need to generate another trick quickly in hearts and this comes from playing for the intra finesse. Win the diamond in dummy, play a heart to the eight and jack, win the next diamond in hand and follow with the Overcalling is a difficult topic altogether, for one man's meat is another man's poison, so to speak, but Robson does a good job in describing the sort of things you should make sure of when entering the auction, although I have to record one slight reservation. I am in principle against so-called 'rules' that determine whether something should be done or not, not because they might not be useful but because they take away individual judgement and bridge literally becomes 'bridge by numbers', and there is a bit of that here. (As an aside the only rule I like is the Rule of Eleven because it always works, unless the opposition are being sly.) The last booklet in this threesome deals with Doubling and I think this was possibly my favourite, because it does reinforce some fundamental strictures. If you ask someone what is expected of them if their partner makes a take-out double they will usually say: 'Partner wants to know my best suit.' Wrong! Yes, partner does want to know your best suit but he also wants to know how good a hand you have, so you have a dual responsibility. There are all sorts of doubles dealt with here, including some fancy up-to-date stuff like the Support Double, but each new topic is dealt with in a sensible and non-condescending manner. In short, I liked these booklets a lot and I'm sure the others in the series are just as good. And they do provide a wonderful source of hands for the prospective teacher . . . Dave Huggett | ||||||||||
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© Bridge Plus 1999-2006
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J 7
A 9 6 3
K 3 2
K 10 3 2
