Off-Road Declarer Play
by David Bird

Master Point Press, £11.95 plus p&p from The Bridge Shop (020 7486 8222)

This book is subtitled ‘Unusual Ways to Play a Bridge Hand’. It is a book that goes beyond the usual every-day stratagems that we all like to think we have mastered. There are fourteen chapters, each addressing a different theme. So we might be reading about new and clever ways to get to dummy, or surviving a bad trump break, or even establishing a side suit. There are loads of examples during the course of each chapter and test questions at the end to make sure the points raised have been actually assimilated. And I really have to take my hat off to Bird for the sheer inventiveness of the hands. As I am in the same sort of business myself to some degree, I know how incredibly hard it is to keep coming up with new material, especially material that cannot lay itself open to obvious criticism (‘I know the double criss-cross squeeze worked, but can’t you just ruff out the diamonds?’). You know what I mean.

Being alert at all times is emphasised throughout the book so, having been given that clue, do you think you would make 6 on the following deal?

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

West	North	East	South
		3	Dbl
Pass	3	Pass	4NT
Pass	5	Pass	6
End

You win the 10 lead with the ace perforce and take stock. If you find your emotions are running away with you since, to some extent, you have found a great dummy, you might well go down, because you might just assume that the hearts are coming in for four tricks. But now is the time to be careful. Conscious that West (presumably) might have length in hearts, you should play a low club at trick two! Do you see why?

West, who almost certainly has the ace, will probably duck – if not, you have two club tricks – so you win the Q in dummy. Now you draw trumps and test the hearts and it doesn’t matter if West does have the jack guarded because on the play of all your trumps he will have to bare the A in order to retain his guard in hearts. Then you simply throw him in with that card and the enforced heart return will give you your extra trick.

In terms of difficulty rating that would be about average, I guess, so you can see that a lot of the hands are very hard indeed – and that perhaps is a slight criticism. Being an old cynic, I can’t help thinking that a lot of these hands would be made in the bar afterwards but not at the table, no matter how good you are, but maybe that is just wishful thinking on my part. At any rate, I think you would need to be more ‘advanced’ than ‘intermediate’ to get the most out of this book.

Bird writes in his usual concise and amusing way and always strives to give the reader something that is just a little bit more than just run of the mill. And he certainly doesn’t disappoint with this latest offering.

Dave Huggett