[Free]

Are there any books, articles, pdf files, whatever that describe the way a true expert should handle declarer play? I don't mean books about simple endplays and squeezes, but I mean stuff about how to handle suits, which suits to start with, playing 3NT without trick sources and lots of intermediate cards, where to place honour cards,...
Sometimes you read "it's the correct way to handle this suit", or "this is theoretical the best line of play", but I'm looking for explanations (and examples). Because if I watch for example the BB, I see people stuck in 3NT with 22HCP and no distribution or solid suits, and pulling it off on a (magical?) way. With perfect declarer play you can win matches, with perfect declarer play you'll better defend because you know what opp is trying to do,...

[Flame]

I disagree with most you said here, you dont need more then the known good declarer play books to be as good as anyone, you just need to be good enough to make it at the table.

[Free]

Flame, on Dec 31 2005, 05:17 PM, said:

I disagree with most you said here, you dont need more then the known good declarer play books to be as good as anyone, you just need to be good enough to make it at the table.

Perhaps a note: I don't care if anyone agrees with me or not. The only thing I'm asking is if there's material on this...

[arrows]

"Expert Game" and "Play these hands with me" by Reese.

[FrancesHinden]

The Bridge World declarer play problems are extremely good. There's also a book published of them.

I know exactly the type of hand you mean: you look at dummy and you can't decide what suit is best to play on, never mind how to play the suit...

[Flame]

Free, on Dec 31 2005, 11:20 AM, said:

Flame, on Dec 31 2005, 05:17 PM, said:

I disagree with most you said here, you dont need more then the known good declarer play books to be as good as anyone, you just need to be good enough to make it at the table.

Perhaps a note: I don't care if anyone agrees with me or not. The only thing I'm asking is if there's material on this...

What i said is there isnt such material cause there isnt such thing.

[ArcLight]

>Are there any books, articles, pdf files, whatever that describe the way a true expert should handle declarer play?

There are quite a few books:

Master Class: Lessons from the Bridge table by Fred. His deals of the week are quite good too.

Terence Reese has some good books:
Play These Hands with me
Play Bridge with Reese
The hidden side of bridge


Hugh Kelsey:
Bridge for the Connoisseur (I didnt find it useful to me)
Advanced Play at Bridge
Adventures in Card Play (insane)

Imagination and Technique (in Bridge /at the Bridge Table)

Play These Hands with Brian Senior

Win the Bermuda Bowl With Me

Play Swiss Teams with Mike Lawrence
Play Bridge with Mike Lawrence

[pclayton]

old DOTW's are great; there are very hands that are geared toward the intermediate player. Almost all are ADV + or better.

But if you've never seen a card play theme before - its hard. If you can master EVERY theme, consider urself an expert.

EDITED - additional thought: I think a lot of the choices a real good card mechanic makes is opting between differing themes.

[mghmaine]

Tremendously humbling, but clearly how to think about a bridge hand at the very highest level, would be Bridge With The Blue Team, edited by Pietro Forquet. My edition is from the 1970s, but I believe there is a later edition involving also editting by Ron Klinger.

[dcvetkov]

mghmaine, on Dec 31 2005, 09:17 PM, said:

Tremendously humbling, but clearly how to think about a bridge hand at the very highest level, would be Bridge With The Blue Team, edited by Pietro Forquet. My edition is from the 1970s, but I believe there is a later edition involving also editting by Ron Klinger.

I agree with this, this is a fabulous book and wll leave you amazed for quite some time. Look behind the shoulder of Garrozzo and others and see how they made some very desparate contracts. OF course, how to translate that to expert play at the table, thats another story;)

[kenberg]

Imo, one of the best (coming under the "whatever" category in your list) is watching the BBO vugraph presentations. You see exactly how a true expert handles the hands, and you have commentary by several experts. Seems pretty much like an expert tutor to me. If you want tough hands from books there are many. Roesenberg's "Bridge, Zia, and me" certainly has a challenging collection. Many are for study since no one would give you the necessary time at the table to work them out, but they can stretch the mind, hopefully improving it. I'm a little unclear as to what you are asking, as I am sure you are familiar with advanced books with advanced hands, but if you want to see what an expert really does, it seems best to watch the experts. Broadcasting these high level events is a very great service provided by BBO.

Ken

[Fluffy]

I learnt from all High Kelsey's books of card play, Test your xxxx play. I have around 10 of them. I seem to understand the nature of each problem, because when I reread any of them couple of years later I could remember 80% solutions or so

[Free]

Tnx, you've all been very helpfull, now I'll have some reading to do

[whereagles]

About "Win the Bermuda Bowl with me", from Meckstroth: very instructive book, where he explains his reasonings for following this or that line of play - just what you want to read, Free.

The most amazing thing of this book is that EVERYTHING he does is so simple that any of us could have done it as well. The trick is, of course, to keep concentrated and play your best game through the whole match. That's what makes Meckstroth better than most experts out there.

[fred]

Lots of good suggestions and lots of good books mentioned here.

However, I think you will get a lot more out of Bridge Master - a software facility that we have created that is designed to improve the user's declarer play. This program is suitable for players of all levels. I am serious about this - no matter how good you are (or how good you think you are) this program is certain to make you a better declarer. For example, Eric Rodwell sometimes uses Bridge Master to "warm up" for tournaments. If it is good enough to help Eric...

I have some bias in this area (since I am the programmer!), but in my view Bridge Master is clearly a superior learning medium to reading books.

You can try some Bridge Master hands for free through Explore Bridge! on BBO. If you like it you can then purchase 100s of supplementary to hands to play (either on BBO or on a CD-ROM).

Try the free sample hands - I suspect you will like it!

Fred Gitelman
Bridge Base Inc.
www.bridgebase.com

[ArcLight]

>However, I think you will get a lot more out of Bridge Master - a software facility that we have created that is designed to improve the user's declarer play. This program is suitable for players of all levels. I am serious about this - no matter how good you are (or how good you think you are) this program is certain to make you a better declarer. For example, Eric Rodwell sometimes uses Bridge Master to "warm up" for tournaments. If it is good enough to help Eric...

>I have some bias in this area (since I am the programmer!), but in my view Bridge Master is clearly a superior learning medium to reading books.


Having read lots of books (>100), and done lots of bridge software programs I agree.


The problems with books are:

1) You are asked to make a key play at trick 3. This is a HUGE tip off, that you never have in real life.

In Bridge Master you play till you are set (or make). Then you have to think about where you went wrong. Maybe it was a bad discard on trick 3? Or not ducking on trick 1? Should I have tried a squeeze?


2) there are no "incomplete solutions". How often has it happened that in a book you think you have the solution, turn the page, and see you missed somthing? Too late, yiu have seen the answer.
In BM "incomplete solutions" don't work. You get set, and have to redo it.


3) It can be hard to follow the card play in books. When all the cards in several tricks are listed, its not always easy to digest.
Software is interactive and presents things more naturally.
Follow the cards as they are played and PAY ATTENTION.

4) Bridge Master removes cards as they are played, so you can't look up at the top of the book and think, you need to train yourself to remember what was played and waht you started with.


The only "Criticism" I have of the Bridge Master product is you are forced to take one set each of level 1-5 problems.
I would *MUCH* rather chose the hands I take, say all level 3 and 4, and nothing from level 1 or 2 (or 5).
I know you can buy expansions, (very reasonably priced at $10 if you download them on BBO), but the initial package is of limited interest to me because of this.

I have done some of the level 3 and 4 hands on my friends BM. If I could buy BM with a tailor made set of hands, say all level 3 and 4, I would buy a copy, plus all the level 3 and 4 expansions.

I wish it were possible to buy the BM engine seperately, and then buy and downlaod the expansions (B3 B4 C3 C4 D3 D4).

[I would buy B3 B4 C3 C4 D3 D4, plus BM 2000 if I could get it without the initial hands.]


P.S. All this is quibling, because the cost of BM ($50 on BBO I think) is not terribly expensive.

[MickyB]

I think the current BM pricing policy is fine -

Most would only buy one or two levels if they had the option. It costs little to nothing to include the extra levels (think of it as a bonus ) but works well as advertising, because when someone else tries your version of BM there will always be some hands that are the right level for him or her.

[Chamaco]

The kind of hands where the usual quizbooks are lacking are often low-level partscore contracts, at the 1 or 2 level.

The reason is simple: there are so many outstanding cards that, more often than not, there is a large number of alternative lines to consider.

I'd like to see more problems about low level partscores with many broken suits, where both of the following are fulfilled:

1- it is not clear which suit to attack
2- declarer does NOT have all tricks needed but one (where the play revloves around the single need to find an extra tricks), but where he starts with, say, only 4 sure tricks when he has to make 7 tricks.

[Al_U_Card]

The Bridgemaster program was (and is) a revolution in bridge learning. I bought the original when it first came out and still take it out on occasion to refresh my play. Kudos to Fred for the application of genius, now if only he could adapt it to economic or political strategy it might just be the next "killer" app...

[GeeGee]

Have to agree about Bridgemaster, it taught me so much. I was so grateful to it when I performed my first squeeze, and will be again when I manage my second...

I think the Mike Lawrence programs are also very good.