How to Play Card Combinations - Bridge Strategy Guide (Devyn Press Bridge Library) | Improve Your Game for Tournaments & Social Play

This is a book so dense with value that I believe I got as much out of it the 2nd time I read it as I did the 1st. It is further evidence that Mike Lawrence is among the best bridge writers ever.The book is not a catalog of dozens of combinations with rules about how to play them. Rather Lawrence teaches the reader how to analyze card combinations in context by taking seven combinations and thoroughly discussing several hands containing each of them. He teaches the reader to fish, as it were. It is as if you are sitting at his elbow as he bids and plays the hand all the while giving you a play-by-play of his thoughts. He calculate the odds; he reads the defense; he counts the hand; he deduces from the bidding. But he also takes note of interesting sidelights and insights in both bidding and play. For example he pauses to describe a particular defender false-card tendency that he has observed in his career.After reading this book the first time, I made an effort to put what I had learned into practice. As I encountered combinations not contained in the book, I would try to think about them as Lawrence does. And as combinations recurred but in different contexts, I would make notes after the session so I could compare ideas about the specific combinations. Sure enough each instance of J9xx opposite K8xx has both similarities and differences with other instances of the same combination. And sure enough, I was getting better at playing them.Not only did I learn from this book, but it was fun to read. Both times.