In 1997 Mike Lawrence and Ron Klinger produced this excellent tome which could easily be called "Everything You Wanted to know about leads but were afraid to ask". I cannot understand why it is limited to Acol players as every aspect that it covers can be applied to players whatever system they are playing !.

The book covers every single combination of leads and when you should lead a low card in your partner suit and when you shouldn't. It seems that before embarking on a new partnership both of you should have read and discussed this book fully before categorically saying I play top of nothing, or second from bad suits or lowest from three small. It all depends on the bidding and whether or not partner bid the suit etc etc and not all experts fully agree on what to lead from three small. It seems that the book recommends top rather than middles, the lesser of two evils according to our esteemed authors.

Mike Lawrence has always been most verbose about why one should not underlead an Ace and the following 8 reasons are cited in Chapter 15 "Leading Aces and  Underleading Aces Against Suit contracts"

1.     An opponent might Have a singleton King

2.     You may give declarer a trick with his King that he could not otherwise make.

3.     Even if your partner has the King, underleading your ace may not gain a trick.

4.     Your partner may have the King but not know to play it (some examples follow in the chapter)

5.     Even when you get lucky and you find dummy with the king and your partner with the Queen, your lead may not gain a trick.

6.     Even when you get lucky and you find dummy with the king and your partner with the Queen, your partner may .not know to play it.

7.     You may have a better lead.

8.     When you lead away from the Ace and it costs your side a trick, it is often your partner who looks silly. This is a bad way to treat your partners.

Several years ago Zia Mahmood, one of the worlds great players and certainly its most flamboyant  issued a challenge that  he would pay one million dollars if a machine could be found that’s could beat him. In September 1999 this challenge was duly met when

1. Blue Chip Bridge (creators Ian Trackman and Mike Whittacker)

2. GIB (Ginsberg's Intelligent Bridge Player ) (creator Matt Ginsberg)

3. Meadowlark Bridge (creator Rod Ludwig)

4. Micro Bridge (creator Tomio & Yumiko Uchida)

5. Oxford Bridgfe (creator Andrew Bracher)

6. Q Plus (creator Han Leber)

7. Saitek Pro Bridge 510 (creator Saitek Corporation)

were invited to take part in a gruelling 2 days when Zia would partner all seven computers and the first to reach 10 points would be crowned undisputed winner. After 15 rounds Zia reached 10 points with Oxford, blue Chip, Q Plus and Saitek in second position with 8 points. The hot favourite "GIB" finished last on 5 points.

This small Bridge Plus publication which was published in record time is a good chronicle of this fascinating event which was beautifully staged at Andy Robson's Bridge Club in Fulham withy the help of Harvey Fox of the English Bridge Union.

Perhaps the most important and difficult aspect of card play is counting. Personally I feel the reason for this is because "most players can't be bothered" as it takes application. However if you can get into the habits of trying to count every hand that you play a) it will come as second nature, b) you will enjoy the game so much more and c) most important of all your results will start to improve dramatically.

In this book Marc and Tim have devoted over 200 very worthwhile pages to this most enjoyable of topics and have come up with such diverse chapter headings as "Clues from the Opening Lead" to Locating a Queen"

.At the end of each chapter there is a comprehensive summary listing the main points of the chapter. In chapter 8 entitled "Locating a Queen" the main points in the summary at the end are :-

·        Delay making the crucial decision until the latest possible moment.

·        Count the defenders' shapes and assume the hand with more cards in a suit will have the Queen.

·        Before playing a particular defender for the queen, make sure that doing so will solve your problem.

·        Remember the Bidding. Having mentally placed a key queen in a defender's hand, check that his previous actions are consistent with your decisions.

  The following shows how a two way guess can be eliminated if you can leave the critical decision for as long as possible and to also get the count in others suits to help formulate your decision.

After opening a 15-17 point No Trumps your partner by way of a transfer sequence propels you into 6NT.

You win West's §Q with the King and then run the ©10 to East's Queen. East returns a Club competing a how low and you win with the Ace. You can count 11 tricks - 4 Hearts, 3 Diamonds, 2 Clubs and 2 Spades. If Diamonds are 33 you will be able to claim otherwise you must find the ªQ. You play off the top Diamonds and West throws a Spade on the second round. Your immediate thought maybe that he wouldn’t discard from the Queen. When West throws another Spade  on the third Diamond winner you may be convinced that East ahs the missing  ªQ.

So you lead a Spade to the King and finesse the 10 on the way back. One down. How were you to know that West had 11 black cards and didn’t bid over 1NT.

Unlucky ? Not at all Because you broke the golden rule - delay the decision until the last possible moment. Having taken your Diamond winners there was no reason not to cash dummy's hearts too. When you played the second heart West would discard and all will be clear. At that point of the hand you can count East's hand - 5 Hearts, 5 Diamonds at least 2 clubs and thus at most one spade. It should then be routine to cash the ªA (in case East's singleton  was the Queen and to then finesse dummy's ªJ knowing it will win (with no unlucky wrong guesses)

The years Mike Lawrence has written some amazing articles and books on card play and bidding. In 1980 this book was published and is totally  complete in all aspects of overcalling and what one should answer to the overcall at the different forms of scoring.

The course of the actions following the overcall is always interesting and Chapter 11 "The Many Faces of the Cue bid" enlightens the reader how to convey different types of strong responses once your partner overcalls.

The three specific cuebids are listed as follows :-

1.     To  show the intention of showing a Game force in a new suit.

2.     To show a raise of partner's suit

3.     To show good hands where you have no idea where to go.

He cites the following as an example of  "I have no idea where to go !!"

N     E     S     W

1§  1ª   2§    3§    with    

ª      K2

©     AQ3        who Knows ? The usual criteria. Good hand. Game is

¨     KQJ92    possible. But where ? Three Clubs starts the dialogue

§  1063

Although the content of this book is for the more advanced player its layout is very clear and is written in a very chatty manner and as with all Lawrence books is  a welcome addition to most bridge libraries.

This book in the Master Bridge Series lists over 50 bidding conventions in bidding and Play, with particular emphasis on the Acol approach.  Many books show how a convention operates but then fails to explain how to combat the menace of that the convention might yield. This book successfully deals with this problem.

Chapter Two deals with specialized Pre-emptive Opening bids including transfer pre-empts and The Gambling 3NT  Opener. The Gambling No Trump is fully explained and then the countermeasure is added.  Klinger recommends that once there has been an Opening 3NT bid one should adopt the following strategy :-

Double = Strong Hand . Suggests doubling if they run to 4 of a Minor.

       4§ = Take-out for the Majors with preference for Hearts

       4¨ = Take-out for the Majors with preference for Spades

  4ª/4©= to play.

The book is very comprehensive and all your favourite and less well known conventions are to be found.

This book together with Conventions By Amelia Kearse is the definitive book on conventions and the book's layout is very   easy to follow.

Each chapter has been given a classification as to its usefulness and its attributes. Also if one convention is played it lists the conventions that also need to be played with it. The conventions are also STARRED according to the following :-

*       Conventions- for all players. These consist only of the most popular and widely used conventions

**        Conventions - for experienced partnerships only

***  Conventions-for tournament players with very experienced partnerships

The section on 4^th Suit Forcing is most comprehensive and useful even though it is given a 3 star rating for only the most experienced players I would recommend that you certainly take on this extremely useful

 convention.

Partner     You          ª A3

    1§            1©         © J874      you are too strong for 2§ but not strong

    1ª            2¨         ¨753         enough for ma forcing jump to 3§

                                   § KQJ9    so temporise with 2¨ (the 4^th suit)

                                           Now your own partner can clarify his holding.

Although this book id more Standard American orientated it is is a certain must for all inspiring tournament players on both sides of the Atlantic.

This book endeavours to show how experts think and operate to obtain maximum good results in as many situations as possible.

I found the large print layout and the bold boxes very helpful.

If one were to merely go through the book summarizing just the large format bold boxes there is enough wisdom in these boxes for players of all levels.

Knowing when to be have passive defence and when to get busy with active defence is not always clear to the average player and the conditions   are laid out as follows :-

                 Conditions for Going Active         Conditions for Remaining Passive

The whole layout of this book is with these large clear boxes and there are many pieces of expert's advice which can only help the less informed player.

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