Need to Know? Bridge
by Andrew Robson

Collins, £8.99 plus p&p from The Bridge Shop. Tel: 020 7486 8222

I am always more impressed when the author of a bridge book for beginners has hands-on experience, and who could be better qualified than one of the world’s leading players and teachers? This beautifully presented book, not quite hardback, not quite paperback, covers everything you’d want to know including basic bidding and card-play strategies with loads of examples and tips. For example, one of the problems I am constantly asked about is when to draw trumps and Robson comes up with a neat flow chart, which goes something like this:

There are oodles of these and as long as they remain aids rather than crutches they must be a good thing. I particularly liked the way some fairly recent ideas in bidding have been introduced early on. When partner overcalls and we have a weakish hand but with trump support we all know to raise the bidding to the level of the trump fit; so with four-card support we would raise to the three level because we know we can rely on partner to have a five card suit. This introduces the newcomer to the notion that often we bid to be a nuisance to the opposition and that going down in a contract can be a good thing when the scoring is right.

The bidding system introduced is basically standard Acol, sensibly with a weak no-trump and four-card majors, which conforms to widespread club use in this country. Conventions are kept to a minimum, which is also sound: the notion of a bid not meaning what it purports to mean is something that takes a lot of getting used to. Later on, of course, most people can’t get enough!

Did I have any niggles at all? Well, yes, there was one. I know it is becoming increasingly fashionable to open 1NT with a five-card major, which if you think about it means that opening and repeating the suit would show six, but you would not find many regular club players doing that. There is also an inconsistency, in that Robson is quite happy to bid 3, say, over a 1NT bid to locate a 5-3 major-suit fit but he is unable to find that fit if the hand with the five spades were the opener: presumably then the bidding might go 1NT – 3NT. The reader might be thinking that you should be able to reach the same contract regardless of who opens.

Anyway, that’s just a minor point. The book is very well written, looks good, and is full of enthusiastic advice – just what is needed to lure people into a lifetime addiction.

Dave Huggett 

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