[kgr]

I just read 6 Dutch books "Bridge Spel en Tegenspel" of Cees Sint / Ton Schipperheyn
based on idees of Terence Reese and Roger Trezel (names of the original books between brackets)
- Veilige speelwijzen (Safety Plays in bridge)
- Blokkerende speelwijzen (Blocking and unblocking plays in bridge)
- Eliminerende speelwijzen (Elimination play in bridge)
- Listige speelwijzen (Snares and swindles)
- De kunst van het uitspelen (when to duck, when to win & Those extra chances)
- De kunst van het tegenspelen (The art of defence)
The authors of the Dutch books mention that in contrary to the original books the problems are presented in Q & A form. Every chapter has a short introduction followed by the games in Q & A. (So it is possible that the Dutch books are more interesting then the original books...maybe a good opportunity for all bridge players to learn Dutch ).
I found these books very interesting and would rate them A+.
It's more difficult for me to give them a level. For BBO level I would say expert+, for BBF level intermediate/advanced.
Anyway an interesting read for all playes below expert level.
Grtz,
Koen
PS: These books were purchased by my sister in law on a flee market for less then 1 EUR. She doens't know anything about bridge, but it turned out to be the best investment I have ever made.

[han]

Nice review, maybe you should post it in the Dutch part of the forum:

http://forums.bridge...showforum=dutch

[ArcLight]

I just Read K. Martens book "Bidding Like Music - Hand Evaluation"

I really liked the format, a large number of competitive bididng problems. ANd he suggests some special meanings of bids in certain situation. The problems centered on visualizing the 3 other hands. Potentially great material.

The big problem I had is while the author said the bididng system would be "Standard", I don't think most of his auctions and interpretations make sense in Standard American. Plus in some of the solutions he says in "Polish Club" this is what you do. Except we aren't using Polish Club in this book. I think a systems nut (like Ken Rexford) might enjoy the book a bit more than I did. If "Standard" means a pretty different system, then the book is not of use to 90% of potential readers. Too bad as there is a lot of good stuff in there.

[blackshoe]

ArcLight, on Mar 13 2008, 09:06 PM, said:

If "Standard" means a pretty different system, then the book is not of use to 90% of potential readers. Too bad as there is a lot of good stuff in there.

If you read a bridge book with an eye towards understanding principles, rather than getting bogged down in "that's not the way I'd bid it!", then IMO it really doesn't matter what system is used.

[Tola18]

ArcLight, on Mar 13 2008, 09:06 PM, said:

I just Read K. Martens book "Bidding Like Music - Hand Evaluation" 

......

the author said the bididng system would be "Standard", I don't think most of his auctions and interpretations make sense in Standard American.  Plus in some of the solutions he says in "Polish Club" this is what you do....

I would guess he does mean some sort of basic polish club (WJ).

It is usual if a polish grandmaster says heshe plays natural, heshe means polish club, a not too fancy variation.

If he REALLY means natural he would probably say Acol, or SA if the material written for american or BBO public.

[the hog]

Arclight, you can learn a lot even if the system is different. Look at Blackshoe's post. Look at the priciples; Standard does not mean SA, it means what is standard in your country. Don't be so narrow minded, you might find something you really like.

[ArcLight]

>Arclight, you can learn a lot even if the system is different. Look at Blackshoe's post. Look at the priciples; Standard does not mean SA, it means what is standard in your country. Don't be so narrow minded, you might find something you really like.

I try not be narrow minded.

I think the "answers" to many of the problems are not obtainable because the bids in the authors "Standard" (not Polish CLub) system are pretty different form what most would consider "Standard". What this means is unless you know what the authors system is, you wont be able to solve many of the problems.

I think "Standard" is nebulous but is probably not radically different overall from country to country, even if there are some differences in certain areas. (ex. some in Australia are fond of the short club 1 ♣ opener with just 2). Now if this is some Polish standard then it may be a great book for someone who knows that system.


>If you read a bridge book with an eye towards understanding principles, rather than getting bogged down in "that's not the way I'd bid it!", then IMO it really doesn't matter what system is used.

"understanding principles' is a very generic term.
You would not be able to solve thes eproblems becaus eyou would expect a player to have a certain distribution based on their bidding. When you look at the answer and see they ahd something different,, because of the system, it wont really help you. It will "help" in a minor way, when you se ethat yes the bid makes sense in the context of the authors (non-standard) expectations. But it wont help you solve the problems.


I don't think most people will get much out of this book because the bidding wont follow what they expect. They wont be able to solve many of the problems. They wont learn principles, because they may know them, and were just misleads by the different meaning of the bid.


I liked the format of the book, and with a coauthor (revising teh bidding) it could have been much better. I don't think this will be of much value to anyone other than those who know what ever "Standard" system the author is using, and also to those interested in system design. They wont be able to solve the problems, but they might be interested in an interpretation.




I would guess he does mean some sort of basic polish club (WJ).

It is usual if a polish grandmaster says heshe plays natural, heshe means polish club, a not too fancy variation.

If he REALLY means natural he would probably say Acol, or SA if the material written for american or BBO public.

For someone who knows whatever teh author considers "standard" I would recommend this book. If you know what the bids mean, you will certainly enjoy it more than I did.

Since it was translated into English I assumed it would be a "standard" that English speakers are familiar with, rather than a Polish Standard.

[Vilgan]

random bump because this is a good thread (and it took me a bit to find).

[cjames]

Random bump from me too. Should not be too difficult to pin this topic?

[ArcLight]

Bridge in the Menagerie by Victor Mollo

Not only is it an amusing book, there are some interesting hands that I wish had not been presented with 4 hands exposed initially. Hideous Hog makes some deceptive plays based on the evidence. It would be fun to see if you could make those as well.

Hideous Hog is hysterical. I found the chapter on Kibitzers arguably the funiest in the book.

This is not just a fiction book. Its highly entertaining, with charming hands.

[Vilgan]

Any comments on Washington Standard by Steve Robinson? Been told it is a good baseline for higher level 2/1, but never heard of it outside of that 1 person.

[the hog]

ArcLight, on May 28 2008, 12:52 AM, said:

Bridge in the Menagerie by Victor Mollo

Not only is it an amusing book, there are some interesting hands that I wish had not been presented with 4 hands exposed initially. Hideous Hog makes some deceptive plays based on the evidence. It would be fun to see if you could make those as well.

Hideous Hog is hysterical. I found the chapter on Kibitzers arguably the funiest in the book.

This is not just a fiction book. Its highly entertaining, with charming hands.

No its not fiction. What made you think that? The characters are based on real life haracters Mollo played rubber against. The Hog is in fact Mollo himself.

[MickyB]

Vilgan, on Jun 2 2008, 05:32 AM, said:

Any comments on Washington Standard by Steve Robinson? Been told it is a good baseline for higher level 2/1, but never heard of it outside of that 1 person.

I play this in one partnership. If you and your partner want a system that is, for the most part, clearly defined, then this is book is excellent - if you both learn everything, you'll be on the same wavelength in most situations.

It is a lot to read, though (300 pages) and I'm unconvinced by the merits of some of the methods - mainly Flannery and rebidding 1S on 4333. If you are happy with these, you'll probably like the whole system.

[Trumpace]

The_Hog, on Jun 2 2008, 12:37 AM, said:

ArcLight, on May 28 2008, 12:52 AM, said:

This is not just a fiction book.  Its highly entertaining, with charming hands.

No its not fiction. What made you think that? The characters are based on real life haracters Mollo played rubber against. The Hog is in fact Mollo himself.

So all the hands etc were actually played in real life as stated in the book? Did Mollo actually eat the ♥ Q?

Mollo must have led an amazing bridge life.

[cjames]

Mollo is probably my favourite writer. If you can get your hands on "The Other Side Of Bridge" by mr Mollo, do so! Probably the best bridge book I have ever read.

[Vilgan]

Book review for: Enhanced Precision (Second Edition) by Ron Beall
Year of publication: 2008

I grabbed this from our local bridge bookseller as he thought of me when he got it in and saved me a copy. It is a small $10 booklet that essentially just condenses down the system notes of the author into a useable form for others to read.

Review: At first, I thought this was a total waste of $10. Most of it was familiar material (he takes forever to describe XYZ, without actually stating it is XYZ). Some parts of his system I thought were absolutely wretched and would never play them in this life.

However, after I continued reading and actually read it all from cover to cover I did find some good insights/ideas in there. Some of the stuff is more modern/improved over other precision material that is available. It is especially good (I think) for matchpoint precision players which I think is great. There are some various ideas in the book that I will be discussing with my main precision partner to see what he thinks, and we might incorporate a few of them.

So... if you are someone looking to learn precision: Do not get this book. It is not good intro material for someone interested in precision. Not only does it have some holes/bad bidding things (imo only) but it is also only a long list of what each bid means in sequence. There is no explanation of the thought behind it. That won't matter to the experienced precision player, but it does make it less appealing to a new precision player imo. If you already play precision of some sort, I think this booklet would probably be worth the $10 it costs to see if it has new ideas you might incorporate into your current system. There are very few modern precision books (2? 3??) so its probably worth grabbing and perusing.

Overall grade: B. Good for people already playing precision who might gain some new things to incorporate into their system from the book. Not so useful for anyone else.

Still cool to see *some* sort of precision stuff coming out though

[neilkaz]

Vilgan, on Jun 2 2008, 12:32 AM, said:

Any comments on Washington Standard by Steve Robinson? Been told it is a good baseline for higher level 2/1, but never heard of it outside of that 1 person.

Very good book. Has lots of interesting treatments and examples of complete sequences. Most won't want to play the complete system, but may wish to adopt treatments, such as the detailed structure after opening a 15-17 NT etc etc.

[areaks]

I wish it was possible to group together the reviews of each book, as it is now, if you come in to a thread late, you may not add your opinion of a book until long after the first review. This way someone would have to read through all 28 pages (so far) to see if a book has been reviewed more than once. I think we all agree that the more reviews a book gets, the more are we able to decide if it is a book we would want to buy. If the reviews were all grouped together, it could be enough to state that you agree with this or that earlier review, and this review would be easy to find.

I have just finished "The Art of Being Lucky" by Gardner and Mollo. I agree fully with ArcLight's review some 10-20 pages earlier - a wonderful book for intermediates and advanced beginners.

[areaks]

Have finished "Why you loose at bridge" by Skid Simon. An entertaining and well written book, but unless you play rubber bridge at a club not that useful. Some good bridge tips, but again, mostly geared towards rubber bridge. I don't even think rubber bridge clubs exist in Norway, so not so relevant for me. Written for intermediates.

[han]

The_Hog, on Jun 2 2008, 12:37 AM, said:

[about the menagery books]

No its not fiction. What made you think that?

Maybe it's the incredible hands that appear? Or the funny conversations they have? Oh no, it must be that the bridge players are all animals!