No comments about Jacoby Transfers (Practice Your Bidding).

No comments about More Declarer Play the Bergen Way: How to Make More Contracts.

No comments about Intermediate Bridge in Three Weeks: A 21-Day Guide to Bridge Mastery.

2 comments about The Stamford Bridge Encyclopedia: An A-Z of Chelsea FC.

1. Whilst now outdated, this is one of the best books to cover the club up until the time of publication. In easy to read A-Z format it contain illustrations and is an indispensable guide to the football club. Some of the entries are rather brief, and their are some small errors, but overall, a good read.



2. Published in the mid-nineties, this book is a fairly selective encyclopedia of the Blues. No entry on Ken Bates? Still, it provides basic information on many of the CFC greats (Charlie Cooke, Ray Wilkins, Peter Osgood, etc.). Would be nice to have this updated to include information on Vialli, Zola.

1 comments about Duplicate Bridge Direction.

1. I bought this book to learn and understand the mechanics that lay behind bridge monevents, especially Howell movement. Namely, tables for Howell movement can be found everywhere on the Net, but how to create a Howell table is not such a trivial job. The book dissapoint me in this, for it explains movement on the level of using ready-to-use cards.
   
   Second big dissapointment is graphical design of the book. Graphics in the book are hand-made, tables are copied in poorely quality. It was understandeable for the first edition, dated in 1967, but second edition, the one from 1993, had to be graphically revised, too.
   
   To resume, if yoe are looking for simple guide to help you to comprehend bridge tournaments, to use ready-to-use tables for movements, you could consider to use this book. On the other side, if you want to understand the movements, you will be dissapinted with this book.

No comments about How to Improve Your Bridge (Master Bridge Series).

No comments about The Pocket Book of Bridge Puzzles (No. 1).

No comments about Endplays And Coups (Test Your Bridge Technique).

1 comments about Thinking on Defense: The Art of Visualization in Bridge.

1. This is an advanced book. The emphasis is not just on simple counting, but looking deeply at the spot cards played, the line of play, and trying to come up with some plausible hands that declarer has.
   Some of the hands will be impossible to set, so reject them. Others wll be set regardless of your action (i.e. declarer over bid). But some will require a specific line of play.
   Also - the point of the book is to not take the "obvious" action, but to think about waht you know about the hand. Lots of examples from real life top level play.
   
   The reader will have to estimate shape and strength, and use small clues.
   All this is excellent practice, and helps improve your thinking.
   
   I love books like this and was eagerly looking forward to reading it. I had put off reading it while I first improved my Bridge skills and read other easier books on defense.
   
   While a number of the hands were solvable based on deep thinking, some were a bit far fetched, and some had mistakes or just plain stupid bidding (or were they typos?)
   
   There is a hand where declarer bids 2 Spades ( a weak 2 premept). This hand was from 1971 so I expected a 6 card suit, probably 3 of the top 5 honors. Instead it was a 7 card suit heads by the A J 9. While thats "legal" it's not a typical auction and no one today would bid 2 Spades with that (unless super sound), it would be bid 3 Spades or even 4.
   Its VERY HARD to solve a bridge puzzle if the inferences you are making are invalid becaus ethe author picked an odd ball hand.
   
   Some of the other hands were also a bit far fetched in terms of reasoning involved.
   
   I didn't really get anything out of this book, that I couldn't find in many other intermediate plus books on defense. The sole exception is the concept of generating a few plausible hands. I do that anyway, but the book reinforced teh concept. I prefered Hugh Kelseys book "Test Your defense" and otehr books like that.
   The authors other book "Match Point Defense" is better - I recommend it.
   
   This book is not appropriate for casual intermediate players. You will solve very few problems, and be lost. Start with simpler books.
   
   
   With better hands I would rate the book a 4. It had great potential, just didn't pull it off.

No comments about Partnership Agreements: A Presentation of Commonly Used Bidding Systems and Conventions Outlining Areas That Require Partnership Agreement.