[mike777]

Swiss Match Challenge by Jeff Rubens. 1992 234pp
Level=Int/Advanced
Grade=B

Reread this book after many years. You bid, play and defend in several Swiss Team Matches. At the end of each match you also see what the other table did. Interesting, fun book that covers the 3 major areas of bridge.

[starfruit]

mike777, on Jan 17 2007, 02:24 AM, said:

hmm I am really surprised..this is a very common book.....you cannot get it on amazon? Heck if need be I will sell it to you if you have no luck.

Just pay for shipping...rest is free

Thanks for the kind offer
I've got no idea why I can't get it even though they're stated as available lol
(It just keeps saying that those items can't be shipped to my country)

Not a problem for now though, since I can order the books from the store. . . until I can't find anything else interesting

[Simpleboi]

Hi,

I am from Singapore too.

Have you taken a look at PageOne at Vivocity? There are quite a number of bridge books there too, although i have taken quite a few, at this time more than borders and kino

I can lend some if interested

Take care

[starfruit]

!
Didn't know there was another location for books. . .
Ok thanks for the information. . .
I shall go take a look when I have the time

[DenisO]

It would be great if we had an index to all these great reviews - any volunteers?

I'm looking for a review of "Winning Card Play" by Kelsey - I think I've seen it here but I'm going to have to go through the thread page by page

[ArcLight]

DenisO, on Jan 24 2007, 09:33 AM, said:

It would be great if we had an index to all these great reviews - any volunteers?

I'm looking for a review of "Winning Card Play" by Kelsey  - I think I've seen it here but I'm going to have to go through the thread page by page

There is a search feature that works reasonably well.

As for Winning Card Play, I think I posted a review on that one.
If not ...

Winning Card Play by Hugh Kelsey

Covers card play technique, similar to Victor Mollos "Card Play Technique".
Squezes, Trump Coups, Elimination & End Plays, Defense against all these

Well written, good examples, worth reading. Good overview. I'd read it in conjunction with some other books on card play such as Mollos book, and the Card Play Made Easy series (by Klinger)

[mike777]

First off let me say that Mollo/Gard....Card play tech.. I think is the number one all time book on BASIC expert card play(1955)? If you read only one book on card play read this one.

[helene_t]

WJ2005 by Jassem.

The book sucks. The important things are the needles dispersed in the blah-blah-blah haystack. It's an annoying read, probably due to bad translation.

You're much better of downloading the WJ2000 book.

[ArcLight]

Three books by Martin Hoffman


Hoffman on Pairs Play - 60 interesting hands, where the reader must use clues or correct technique to make the contract. Some hands are presented double dummy and the reader must find the mistake. 2 summary points after each hand. Excellent book, one of the best I've read. Most of the hands are solvable of for an Intermediate plus level player. They require drawing inferences. The card play is not especially complex, so don't worry about missing the Backwash squeeze.

More tales of Hoffman - the Sequel to Hoffman on Pairs Play. 60 hands, same format. I was disappointed as the hands / clues were in general not as good. Theer were still some good hands, but also some "less good" ones and some complex ones. The book is still worth reading, but not the classic the first one is.

Defense in Depth - pretty good book. 60 hands, you are on defense. It seemed like the theme of the book was "how can I break up the squeeze" as taht must have come up in at least a quarter of the hands. Solid Intermediate Plus / Advanced book. Worth reading


Martin Hoffman also has 2 other books
- Inspired Cardplay
- Over Hoffmans Shoulder

Has anyone read them? What are the hands like? Are they like Pairs game and More Takes of Hoffman?

[ArcLight]

Washington Standard by Steve Robinson

A well organized, well presented book on 2/1 using Steve Robinsons methods. They may not be the best, and they may not be "standard" but the book is well presented. The reader can find many problem areas and reach agreements on many common problems and sequences. Things like what does it mean if the opponents bid over our Jacoby 2NT response. That alone is worth far more than using "the best" methos and conventions. The author presents his suggested signaling methods (he likes Smith Echo - and gives some good examples).

I enjoyed the book, just because it was well layed out and nicely presented. I probably won't use his methods, but if a person I wanted to play with did, this book would be invaluable in helping me get up to speed and agree on common problem areas.

This is not just a 2/1 book, its a complete system, with the authors suggested conventions.

Its worth reading for anyone above Beginner level that is interested in playing 2/1

[ArcLight]

Cuebidding at Bridge by Ken Rexford

I was eagerly looking forward to this, but just didn't get around to reading it for a few months. After reading the first section I am quite disappointed


There are some interesting ideas, but also lots of basics left out, plus ambiguous sequences. What I wanted was a clear self contained system hand book on using Italian Style cuebidding. Bells and whistles can be included in later chapters. Maybe I am mistaken, but what is presented includes some of the authors favorite conventions on top, such as serious 3NT. I don't know what is "standard" and what are the authors pet treatments. Do all top experts use Serious 3NT? Did Garozzo and Belladonna use it along when they used Italian style cue bidding? (I doubt it)

I want the opinions of a true expert, not someone who has just been playing for a long time and has ACBL attendence points (i.e. Master Points). I want to learn the cue bididng systems used by strong players, without esoteric treatments that can lead to confusion or bad results. Those can be introduced in later chapters, but don't include them as part of the base system.
A non expert can still explain a method, but when he starts venturing his own opinion, he is doing an injustice to his readers.

Here is an auction that he does not cover
1♥ - 3♥ [4+ hearts, 10-12 support points, a Limit Raise]
4♣ - 4♦

what does 4♦ mean?

4♣ bypassed spades, opener does not have a spade control.
What does 4♦ mean? Does it show the spade control, and deny the diamond control?
This is not explained in his book.
Will this come up? Its very likely.


An example is given of a 2/1 bidding sequence where 2NT comes up and the author says the partners will have to agree when its natural and when its part of his system. (2NT in his system is a special bid that denies 2 of the top 3 honors in the trump suit)

Doh!
If these methods are going to add confusion to basic, common sequences, then you are really asking for some morale damaging disasters.
Have fun explaining your bad results to your team mates. "we made 2 extra slams" you can say. "Yes, and you had 2 other disasters to offset them".

Contrast this with Ron Klingers Classic Cue Bidding to Slam. It has lots of examples, and covers some of the variations, such as cue bidding 1st and 2nd round controls. The only problem is it doesn't have more than a few pages on this, and more coverage is needed.

In Alan Moulds excellent Step by Step Slam Bidding, he covers judgment, which is not covered in this book. In the Rexford book, the author seems to try for slams that are a bit thin. Maybe his declarer skills are equal to those of Belladonna and Garozzo, mine are not.


I don't know who this book is aimed at.
Its certainly not for beginners or intermediates.
Is it for Advanced players, or experts? The advertisement on the back says "Advanced". I don't see how it will help them. Its not a complete system. Its got gaps and ambiguous sequences. It will give some spectacular results, and also some disasters. Is it worth using if its marginally better than the traditional aces first method? If the book was more complete, and covered many more meat and potato sequences I could consider it of some use.

I have read almost 200 Bridge books. This is one of the least useful I've read, in the bottom 10%
(I also really dislike Julian Pottages books). I don't even want it on my book shelf.


I will trade it along with my 2nd copy of Alan Moulds excellent book Step by Step Preempts (unused), and Kantar on Kontract (unused) for books I have not read such as:

- Hand Reading in Bridge by Danny Roth

- Find the Mistake by Eric Jannersten

- Bridge Odds for Practical Players by Hugh Kelsey

- Over Hoffmans Shoulder by Martin Hoffman

- Inspired Card Play by Martin Hoffman

- Washington Standard by Steve Robinson [read but don't own]

[slightly curious about the Rubens books]

- Useful Space Principals & Transfer Advantages of Overcalls by Jeff Rubens

- Journalist Leads by Jeff Rubens

[Chamaco]

Quote

Cuebidding at Bridge by Ken Rexford

IWhat I wanted was a clear self contained system hand book on using Italian Style cuebidding. 

Check out this (access from Dan Neill's site):
http://www.geocities.com/daniel_neill_2000...ddingToSlam.zip

It does not cover "Turbo" though, but still it is a pretty comprehensive coverage

Quote

I don't know what is  "standard" and what are the authors pet treatments.  Do all top experts use Serious 3NT?  Did Garozzo and Belladonna use it along when they used Italian style cue bidding?  (I doubt it)

In most cases they did not need it, because they played a strong club system, where usually one of the 2 partners had a limited hand.

Serious 3NT *can* be useful also in *some* sequences of a strong club system, but where it really becomes really important is in a 2/1 scheme where opener can still have a very wide-range of strength.

However, even in a 2/1 context, the "Turbo" scheme is worth exploring.

[ArcLight]

Thank you for the link to Belladonna's very nice article on cue bidding.
Its much better than the book.
Look at this excerpt from Belladonnas article:

3a) Two No-trumps
a1) with a fit in a MAJOR
- if bid immediately after partner’s raise, it shows minimum strength and/or a bad trump suit and says nothing about side controls, even those bypassed
- if bid after cue-bids it’s a counter-cue-bid

At least Belladonna is giving a rule when 2NT is showing the poor trumps. In teh Cuebidding at Bridge book the author says "the players will ahev to decide for themselves". I would prefer the advice and experience of experts (such as Belladonna) to present their rules rather than leave it to me.

Here is another good example, thats not in the Rexford book

1H-2C-2D-2H-3D-3H cue-bid in S and C (at least one 1st-round, else S and C Aces are missing)
(S Kx H Qxxx D Kx C AKxxx)


And another - this is what I mentioned in my first post

1C-2H-3H-4C-4D 1st- or 2nd-round control in S. Bidding squeeze in D, control of which is not guaranteed. (S AKx H Axxx D xx C QJxx)
1S-3S-4D-4H 1st- or 2nd-round C control. Bidding squeeze in H, control of which is not guaranteed. (S QJxx H xx D Qxx C Axxx)


Who "invented" Italian cue bidding? The Blue team? Did it evlove slowly? With iterative refinements?

[Flame]

ArcLight, on Feb 22 2007, 08:24 PM, said:

Washington Standard by Steve Robinson

How did you get the book ? did you by it directly from steve ? how much did you pay for it ?

[SoTired]

You can get it from Barclays at http://www.baronbarc...s/NEWBOOKS.html

or autographed from the author by sending a check for $25.95 to Steve Robinson, 2891 S. Abingdon St. #A2 Arlington, Va, 22206

Steve's email address is robinswr at-sign-goes-here erols.com

[ArcLight]

>How did you get the book ? did you by it directly from steve ? how much did you pay for it ?


While Baron Barclay may be excellent, I have found that the #1 place to go for books is first

http://www.carlritner.com/

Carl Ritner has a ton of used or new books in various conditions.
I have probably spent several hundred dollars buying dozens books from him over the years.

In fact, I believe there is an unexplainable law of nature, which I call "Ritners Law". It works like this:

EVERY used / older Bridge book you buy else where will soon be ofered by Carl for less money. Its happened to me repeatedly

[Flame]

Thanks for the info, there are 2 problems, there is a new edition of the book and second this book cost much more in many places other then steve himself.

[kenrexford]

I am disappointed that you did not finish reading throught he book, and that I apparently used a writing technique that left you not following the material, Arclight.

When the 2NT cuebid is described, there is an ambiguous caveat added by the publisher that I feared would be misunderstood. If you read through the whole book, not just the first section, you see that the only exception (and hence the "rule") that I described is when the major is agreed but not GF.

You also gave some examples of cuebidding situations that "are not in the book." Apparently, the text was not clear enough for you, and maybe others, as all of these auctions are, I agree, basic, but they are covered and explained. If you read the section on inferential cuebidding, in which I describe in detail the many types of inferences, you would realize that some auctions that you did not see in the book are actually in the book and described nonetheless, perhaps later, after the first section.

Now, I'll grant that perhaps the specific auction of 1♥-P-3♥-P-4♣-P-4♦ is not in the book, for example. This is because I do not describe any auctions using a limit raise, as the core system I assume uses 3♣ for all limit raise hands, 3♥ being preemptive. However, the 4♦ bid, here, is a LTTC bid, described in the book, with an inference below the suit (spade control), described in the book, with diamond control not being promised for the LTTC bid, described in the book.

I am a tad confused by your assessment, after reading the first section only, that I have left a lot out a lot and have holes. The feedback I have received from many you might consider "true" experts was that if anything I might have covered too much ground, not too little. I only had 200 pages with which to work (that was the page limit). Maybe I could have covered cuebidding theory for precision players, Acol, and canape folks, given space, but I had to select a system and work from there, given the page limits. You just cannot cover every possible auction for every possible system with parameters like page limits.

This is why I set up the blog that someone referenced in another post. Many folks enjoyed my work and have been using the techniques, but strange situations might from time-to-time arise. So, I receive emails and respond to them, sometimes posting the discussion on line when this might be universally important. I even sometimes engage in leaps of imagination into the surreal extremes of theory, just to cover the issue in case anyone is crazy enough to go that far. I expected that holes would exist in the extremes of theory, but I'm surprised to read a review that sees too many holes.

[ArcLight]

>I am disappointed that you did not finish reading throught he book, and that I apparently used a writing technique that left you not following the material, Arclight.


I did skim the other sections. As this is an assortment of various methods one can use, I didn't think it was necessary to read them in detail all at once. I read the main part in detail. It was not the case of skimming 1/3 of the book and saying "I don't like it".

I did read the section on Inferential Cue bids, in detail. I think it's one of the most important aspects of Italian style cue bidding. I did not see the answer to my examples, thats why I posted them. There are no Limit Raise examples, only 2/1 examples. That ok, but I found some of the examples from the Belladonna article absent in the book.

Since screwing up cue bidding and slam bidding is very bad, I think its critical for an author to make everything clear, and not leave it for the reader to pick up on one key aspect - the further cue bidding after one pard has skipped a suit(s) implies coverage of those suits, but not the suit bid.

How do you handle continuations? This is a common occurence and a lot more useful to prospective users than some of the material in the later sections.

To put it inperspective, after reading the Klinger and Mould books, I felt comfortable using cue bidding. After reading this book I think there is potential, but too many gaps in the teaching material to feel comfortable using it. It doesn't strike me as complete, too many unanswered questions left to the user. Maybe thats the point - you can make whatever agreements you like.
Well that doesn't appeal to me - I want a guide. Like "this is the suggested basic system many pairs use".

When I first read the Belladonna article, there were some things that weren't clear to me. But some of the Inferential sequences did help more than those in the book.

My gut feeling is using this in a bidding room could be interesting, but I'd have to spend a lot of time fleshing out misunderstanding and gaps/holes that were not covered. Thats frustrating, because with more examples of basic sequences the time wsted would be cut down.

I would not be happy using a system where strange systems arrise from time to tme, leading to bad results, and these offset some of the gains. I'm not talking about a slam off 2 aces, or the AK, a sthat can happen accoring to the original users. If you use a more complex system and it overall gives better results even taking account the mixups, it still may not be worth using if its complex or memory intensive or yields just slightly better results.


One doesn't win by using slightly better conventions than the opponents*, you win by playing better bridge. [one can win by using methods the opponents are not familiar with - you are winning not becaus eyou are any good, but becaus eof surprise. You can think you are good, even though you are not]

* - unless you are both world class. When I'm ready to face Meckwell and Hamway and Fred then I'll think about more complex methods.

[kenrexford]

I agree with some of what you are saying, Arclight. This is a very complex set of agreemebnts that a partnership could use. I'm not so sure that this is beyond an advanced partnership to use. As an example, you suggested that my status is not that of a recognized expert, and yet I have had almost no problems with regular partners in using these techniques. The errors are not in remembering the techniques, but rather in occasional bad judgment. So, if little ole me can handle it, surely you could.

The reason I responded, however, was that I think you are being a tad unfair in your assessment, analysis, and review. Take three of your main objections:

1. You claim/imply that I only focus on GF auctions. Rather, I do not remotely limit my coverage to cuebidding only in 2/1 GF auctions. First, I cover cuebids in great detail in game-invitational auctions (limit raises); I do this in the context of using 3♣ for the limit raise. The principles are the same, just with added space for one route. Second, I cover cuebids in great detail in simple raise situations, even adding a concept of a serious 3NT by a hand limited to simple-raise values, with a special asking bid after that. I also cover cuebidding when slam seems impossible because of limited bids on both sides, cuebidding and serious 3NT (by the weak partner) after a double negative, cuebidding after picture jumps, cuebidding after preempts and weak twos, and many many other "weak auction" cuebidding techniques. Your skimming must have missed this.

2. The example of a principle you call a "bidding squeeze" does not even exist using my techniques. Without Last Train to Clarksvillle, 1♥-P-3♥-P-4♣-P-4♦ is an auction that requires the partnership to recognize that the spade control is the key control when cuebidding 4♦. In other words, the "bidding squeeze" creates as exception to the general rule. Using my techniques, however, this 4♦ cuebid is specifically defined as not showing or denying a diamond control, but rather confirming the possession of all contextually needed controls (spades) and showing inability to take over and RKCB the hand. Your objection assumes a different cuebidding style that you may have learned before, where the problem is not solved without an exception, rather than actually using the techniques I described, where the problem of the bidding squeeze is not there because definitions resolve that issue.

3. You had a problem with the comment that 2NT, a cuebid denying two top trumps, might have agreed partnership exceptions. If you had read through the rest of the book, rather than skimming it, you would see that the sole exception that I describe is a 2NT call after a passable raise of a major. The stated exception was that 2NT in this auction is the one call that allows the partnership to play in 3NT. Again, skimming missed this. Note that the comment was not what you quoted, namely "the players will have to decide for themselves." Rather, the comment (inserted by Ray Lee) was that "You should, however, make sure that you and partner identify any auction where you want to retain a natural 2NT call as an option." What you describe as uncertainty is actually a concession that some people may opt out of my absolute rule that 2NT always denies two top honors in trumps when in a GF auction. Allowing the reader to decide something with his partner that is different than what I recommend is not a failure to provide hard and fast rules.

Normally, I would resolve myself to let some people like the book, and comment favorably, and others to dislike the book, and comment unfavorably. But, when you give the book such rebuke with an analysis based upon skimming, and when your analysis is frightfully errant, I feel the need to comment.

You add another auction "not in the Rexford book" of

"1H-2C-2D-2H-3D-3H cue-bid in S and C (at least one 1st-round, else S and C Aces are missing)
(S Kx H Qxxx D Kx C AKxxx)"

Again, you are assessing with a skimming in a way that is completely off-base. This auction is almost bid-for-bid in the book, even with the one-top-one-second analysis. Furthermore, my cuebidding in this situation would have further definition discussed for this auction that you and even the Belladonna quote missed. As Opener showed good trumps, through his bypass of 2NT to bid 3♦, Responder's 3♥ would also show the third heart honor. Any other cuebid between 3♥ and 4♦ would also have guaranteed the spade-club combo you mention, but would deny the third heart (and would show whatever else that cue would show). I would know that this example hand povided by Belladonna included that heart Queen.

So, rather than not covering this issue like Belladonna, I actually covered it in much more detail than Belladonna did. Note that I commented on the Belladonna article as one of my sources when preparing my techniques.

When you review a book for others, and hammer the book as very poor, you might want to actually have read the book. Otherwise, there is a fair chance that you will get your analysis wrong, as seems to have happened here.

If you do read the entire book, and understand it, and still think it is a poor book, then I will respect your opinion.