Matchpoint Defence
by Jim Priebe

Master Point Press, £11.95 plus p&p from The Bridge Shop. Tel: 020 7486 8222

I played my last pairs game about fifteen years ago, and after reading this book I remembered why I stopped! Not, let me hasten to explain, because this book has no value, quite the opposite: it made me realise all over again what an incredibly difficult task it is to play match-points well, and even more so, to defend well. This is because it may not be obvious what your objectives are. At teams you have one concern only: to defeat the opposition in their contract, and if you sprinkle a few overtricks along the way, too bad. At pairs, the objective is to give away as little as possible and if that means refusing to take a 10% line which just might defeat the contract at the risk of giving away overtricks, then that is what you have to do. You also have to assess the probability that declarer is playing in the 'normal' contract and act accordingly. For example, if you are sure on the sight of dummy that the opponents have reached a highly speculative game that nobody else will bid, then you have to do whatever it takes to try and defeat them.

Jim Priebe is a Canadian international who writes lucidly about such matters in his latest book. From the beginning it is full of interest. He explains that, in an ordinary 26-board competition, each board is worth about 4% of the session's total score. That much is obvious, maybe, but Priebe has studied the results from many pairs events and comes up with some interesting findings. For instance, every overtrick you deny to your opponents will improve your score by 1% in a session, and if you beat a slam, that can be worth 4%.

All the key aspects of defence are covered here, starting with the opening lead: when to play safe and when to go for broke; how to make the most of your signalling methods (and do you really have enough of those?), and when just to cash out. The last half of the book presents a raft of deals taken from actual play, with varying degrees of difficulty. How you would have fared on this one?

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

You lead the 10 and maybe look at dummy with raised eyebrows. Dummy plays the K, with partner playing the 6 and declarer the 5. Declarer crosses to his hand with the A and leads the 7. What do you do?

It looks as though partner started with a doubleton heart and if you play the A now you are giving declarer three heart tricks when he is only entitled to two. But hang on, hasn't the play in diamonds been revealing? West can tell that declarer has A-K or he would be finessing, and must have the Q as well to give him a maximum no-trump bid, which means he has nothing in clubs. So win the heart - partner showing out, as it happens - and switch to the Q. Partner held A-K-10-8-6-2 and did well not to signal his strength by discarding one on the second heart, and the contract was defeated by three tricks. If you had played low on the second heart, declarer would have made his contract.

This is not an easy book and not for the novice, but more than returns the effort in reading it. But as for me, it's back to imps and something I vaguely comprehend.

Dave Huggett

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