Still Crazy After All (39) These Years

October 12th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

Ray and I have been married for 39 years as of today, October 12th. We are celebrating our anniverary in the state of the palm trees, oranges, theme parks and beaches. I love Florida. Well you might have guessed that already. I was thinking about how Ray is a very special person and how much he has personally given to bridge. He will never be in the Bridge Hall of Fame. I doubt he will win awards (although his books have) but he has made a great contribution to our game.

Let me go back to the 70’s. When I first met Ray he was a bridge teacher as well as a player (along with being a chemistry professor at the University of Toronto). He was also the bridge columnist for the Toronto Star and an avid photographer. We still like to look at the columns most of which feature our generation of young bridge players. Many of the columns had more than just a bridge hand they had a story to tell. A few years ago we collected the bridge columns and put them in a scrap book. I think it would be fun to start to publish some of them on the blog along with some of Ray’s pictures.

Ray used to have a dark room in the basement of the house and he would produce lots of black and white photos and he also had lots of slides. It is still fun to see younger versions of my bridge friends.

Ray taught bridge sometimes with me at various venues. Duplicating notes to give to the players was not as easy then as it now. Team teaching was fun. We also ran games in a local community center.

Ray was editor of our unit’s bridge magazine the Kibbitzer. He created a new format and figured out how to produce a high quality magazine at a low cost. Later he was editor of an insert in the magazine called the Dorbitzer which contained bridge content (rather than board announcements and tournament results which filled the rest of the magazine).

Ray and I had a long rest from bridge while we raised our family but when we returned we started a magazine Canadian Master Point with Ray as the editor. It was non-profit. Nobody was paid. It went from a small local distribution to a country-wide magazine. It was filled with wonderful articles from some of the best in bridge.

At the time Ray was the president of a Canadian publishing company. When Ray decided it was time to leave corporate life he started Master Point Press. It was an unintended non-profit. It took quite a few years before Ray could take a salary. We tried to develop local talent but we also wanted to publish the best books from the best bridge authors and players. Ray built Master Point Press into the world’s biggest publisher of bridge books. One of the things about Master Point Press is that the authors and the bridge book distributors are personal friends. Ray’s goal has always been to produce a very high quality product which he does efficiently and so very well. I believe Ray is one of the best editors in the world. He also is a sound business man.

Many of the best books published by Master Point Press originated from an idea that we had. We then found an author team to take over and write the book. So in more ways than one Ray has contributed to bridge literature.

Ray decided early on that Master Point Press should not be just focused on making a profit. There were the books he did because he knew they would do well but there were also the books he did because he felt they should be published. In many cases we have worked with authors for years to get their book finally finished. The company also decided that making a contribution to the bridge community was very important. So Ray established the MPP IBPA Book of the year, the ABTA teacher of the year and has made contributions to Canadian teams among other things.

A few years ago Ray was a member of the Canadian Bridge Federation board of directors and then its president.  His presidency included 2001 and he supported a decision not to go to Bali after 9/11 and then went to Paris with our team.  Later he selected Canada’s demonstration team for Salt Lake CIty pre-Olympics.  We went along to help and were very proud to cheer the Canadian Open Team to victory.  Ray was also emergency NPC for Canada’s women’s team which went to Shanghai.  That was a tough job because I got quite ill and other team members had some challenges too.  Still our team narrowly lost the quarterfinals to Germany.

He has participated in bridge vugraph in a large bookstore, taught bridge classes in another bookstore, handed out sushi at a tournament to promote Samaurai Bridge, mentored bridge authors, attended numerous tournaments to met with book sellers and authors, spoken at ABTA conferences, handed our prizes and so on.

Ray has a cartoon which shows some aliens looking over a letter from an author which says; “Sometimes I wonder if you editors really are human.” While Ray has had to turn down book proposal he always does it in a helpful way. Potential authors don’t get “form letter number 1.”

So Ray has been a bridge teacher, writer, editor, publisher, promoter, NPC, administrator and sometime player. And what is more he will always be at Table 1 in my personal Bridge Hall of Fame.

Ray relaxing as we search for furniture in Sarasota.

Ray playing  his second favorite game.

I realize as I write this that this blog is about Ray and bridge and of course on our anniversary it seems appropriate to talk about Ray and me.  When Ray and I were first married it seemed we went for years without fighting.  The first fight I remember was over backgammon.  I had a big lead and I doubled Ray.  He knew he shouldn’t accept but he did and then had a series of huge rolls.  One thing led to another and eventually I upended the board and went for a long walk.  By the time I got home I realized how silly the whole thing was.  Since then our fights have been few and far between.  We love and respect each other.  We each have our strengths and weaknesses.  Ray likes to tease me about being vertically challenged, hard of hearing, directionally challenged (I get lost a lot) and a few other things of this ilk.  I poke at him about the time spent watching soccer, being a bit over organized and yes leaving the toilet seat up (although I have given up on that one).  But mostly we treat each other foibles with indulgence and problems and disagreements with humour.  We have learned to be supportive and avoid being hurtful.  So after 39 years I couldn’t imagine a life that wouldn’t have included the two of us, working together, sharing, raising our children, loving our grandchildren, building businesses, furnishing houses and being together throughout it all.

Memories … k d lang

October 10th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

Last night Ray and I went to a memorable concert by k d lang in the concert hall in Sarasota.  Of course when Lang sang Hallelujah it brought the crowd to its feet.  It brought back memories of the Vancouver Winter Olympics.  I have always love Leonard Cohen a fixture in my university days.  If you were a female student in the late 60’s or early 70’s you were probably Suzanne.

Anyway, I think of k d lang singing that song as we approach the bridge world championships.  Most competitors are not going to win or even place.  I have been one of the also rans and I find the words of this song speaks to me …  Here is the last verse – the competitors’ verse

I did my best, it wasn’t much

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Good luck to all of you.  Congratulations on being there, on competing.  Special good luck to Bob and Judy and all my friends who will be in Holland.

Gunslingers .. things to come in the Bermuda Bowl?

October 9th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

The Swedish played Norway in a pre-Bermuda Bowl practice session.  Sweden will be a competitor but Norway will be sitting this Open Championship out.  I sat down at my computer to watch the second 16 boards.  Pretty well all of them had big swings.  After settling down with a push on Board 17 board 18 and 19 produced two double digit swings.

You are vulnerable vs not and you have:

 If you were in first chair perhaps you might open a weak two bid with 2♦  (MultU) or 2♠  (if you are from ACBCL-LAND) But you are in fourth chair and the bidding has got to quite a high level before it is your turn to speak.  South opens 3♥ and North raises to  4♥ as partner passes.  Do you bid?

I am not crazy about a save at this vulnerability.  Is there a chance partner has a good hand with insufficient spades to bid over 3♥?  Sure.  But partner doesn’t have all that many hearts and he didn’t find a bid.  Still they could be stealing.  If you do want to bid I suppose it is 4♠ . 

All those who bid spades are losing imps it is merely a question of how many.  The hand is cold for 3 down unless the defense errs and TUndal and Grotheim made no mistakes.  That is a lose of 12 imps when taking into account the +140 partner’s achieved in 3♥.  However things at this table took a worse turn when Bertheau with

obviously expected more from Nystrin and sent it back upping the ante to a 16 imps lose.  However passes may still have cost you 7 imps since it is possible to make 4♥  with some good guess work.  The whole hand was

Dealer: Vul:	North ♠ J98  ♥ AQ6  ♦ A92  ♣ A752
West ♠ A  ♥ K32  ♦ QJ754  ♣ 10843		East ♠ Q106542  ♥ J ♦ K1086  ♣  KJ
	South ♠ K73  ♥ 1098754  ♦ 3  ♣ Q96

In the Open Room South “inexplicably passed” the six hearts to the 10 and when North opened 1NT South transferred to hearts.  The final contract was 3♥  after East intervened with 3♠.  And if you give gunslinger points do you give then to South for the  3♥ bid, East for the 4♠ bid or West for the redouble.

If you think that ended the action you are wrong.  The difference between going 5 or 6 down in 6S doubled was worth 7 imps but was this the desired result?  It is true that the opposition can make 1430 in 6H but would they have landed there.  In the Open Room East Brogeland opened 4C (Namyats showing a good opening 4♥  preempt).  Nybo West continued with 4♦  on the way to a slam try.  North Cullin held

 obstructed with 4S and Broglenad showed something in clubs with 5C.  Upmark continued the obfuscation with 5S and Nybo made a grand slam try with 5NT.

Contest World ChampionshipsMAMA

October 3rd, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

It’s time to submit your entries for the Master Point Press world championship contest.  The goal of this event is to select the teams that place in the Bermuda Bowl.

Your job is to:

Pick the final eight teams

Pick the four semifinalist

Pick the two finalist

Pick the winner of the 3/4 game

Pick the winner

and as a tie breaker pick the highest placing team in the Senior.  If there is a tie the winner will be chosen by the position of their Senior team.  If there is still a tie then we will select the winner throw an electronic coin toss here in the headquarters of MPP.

Points:

1. 1 point for each of the quarterfinalist: MAX 8 points
2. 2 points for each of the foursemifinalists MAX 8 points
3. 3 points for each of the two finalist MAX 6 points
4. 3 points for the winner of the 3/4 playoff MAX 4 points
5. 4 points for the winner of the final MAX 4 points

If any mathematician thinks I should change the point system then let me know.

The Prize: A gift certificate for $25 towards for www.ebooksbridge.com OR a paper copy of one of the best bridge books of all time, The Rodwell Files, personally put in an envelope by Sally Sparrow and sent to you OR an autographed (by me) copy of Bridge Squeezes Complete which I will personally put in an envelope and send to you.

All entrants will get a $5 gift certificate to www.ebooksbridge.  This gift certificate will be emailed to you when you enter.

Send your entries to lisa@masterpointpress.com.  Entries must be submitted before the first round of play begins.  We will endeavor to keep you up to date on the score.

The 8 finalists for the Bermuda Bowl … my Guess

October 1st, 2011  ~  linda  ~  4 Comments 

I know I have been on a blogging slowdown.  I have been busier than usual with work but mostly I have been playing an online role playing game called RIFT.  This has been going on for several months and it takes a lot of time.

We are heading for Sarasota tomorrow and will be there or on the road for three weeks.  I know that I will be back blogging when the world championships are on.  I wouldn’t miss that.  At Master Point Press we have been busy getting more ebooks online and getting more vendors signed up to sell them.  I will be writing more about that soon.

Ray and I do plan to play bridge in Sarasota while we are there but I don’t think we are quite ready to become the scourge of the In Between Club yet.  So if you see me at the club please come over and say hello.   But the main focus of this visit is to buy furniture.  I am not very good at this.  I remember when I was seventeen and I was tested and told that I had a bad problem with spatial visualization.  I was much better at just about everything else.  I also have problems with colors and patterns.  When we buy something it takes me a few days to decide if I actually like it.  Fortunately Ray is much better than me and we have a plan to get some help with our shopping.

I think of all the wonderful new things in the bridge world.  The Internet and technology has changed things so fast.  But the excitement of a world championship hasn’t changed at all.  The scoring is faster and better and the results are available deal by deal on Swan Bridge.  You can watch matches on BBO and hear commentary, now with voice.  I am not sure that is an innovation I am ready for but I can always turn my speakers off.

The 22 teams playing the Bermuda Bowl play a complete round robin to get the field down to eight teams.  Here is my pick for the top eight… I am interested in yours too.

Last time in Shanghai the final 8 for the Bermuda Bowl were: USA 1, Australia, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, China, South Africa and Italy

From Europe:

Italy

Norberto BOCCHI (Italy)

Giorgio DUBOIN

Lorenzo LAURIA

Agustin MADALA

Antonio SEMENTA

Alfredo VERSACE

NPC: Maria Teresa LAVAZZA

Coach:  Massimo ORTENSI (Italy)

Longtime partnerships, serious professional players and romantic sounding names.

Poland

Krzysztof BURAS

Piotr GAWRYS

Krzysztof JASSEM

Jacek KALITA

Krzysztof MARTENS

Grzegorz NARKIEWICZ

Piotr WALCZAK

NPC: Wojtek SIWIEC

They have innovative ideas on bidding systems and also on card play.  They also have names that are going to be hard for we North Americans to pronounce.

So far Polish club versus Italian club systems

I am going to go out on a very small limb with

Israel

Michael BAREL

Eldad GINOSSAR

lan HERBST

Ophir HERBST

Ron PACHTMAN

Yaniv ZACK

NPC: Joseph ENGEL

They have been doing very well in bridge events and I think they could make the final eight.

With home team advantage I expect the Netherlands to pull it off:

Netherlands

Sjoert BRINK

Bas DRIJVER

Bauke MULLER

Ricco van PROOIJEN

Louk VERHEES JR

Simon de WIJS

NPC: Eric LAURANT

Coach: Anton MAAS

From North America

USA 1

Martin FLEISHER (U.S.A.)

Mike KAMIL (U.S.A.)

Robert (Bobby) LEVIN (U.S.A.)

Chip MARTEL (U.S.A.)

Lew STANSBY (U.S.A.)

Steve WEINSTEIN (U.S.A.)

NPC: Jan MARTEL (U.S.A.)

Coach: Kit WOOLSEY (U.S.A.)

These are all really good players.  Martel and Stansby are one of my favorite pairs.

USA 2

Kevin BATHURST

Joe GRUE

John HURD

Justin LALL

Joel WOOLDRIDGE

Daniel ZAGORIN

NPC: Curtis CHEEK

Are these young men ready for prime time? After watching them play in the trials I think they are.

China

Xu HOU (China)

Jie LI (China)

Ruoyang LIAN (China)

Jing LIU (China)

Haojun SHI (China)

Miao SHI (China)

Jihong HU (China)

NPC: Gang CHEN (China)

Precision clubs takes them to the round of eight.  I don’t think they are going further than that though.

So who gets the last spot.  Brazil? Sweden?  Bulgaria? Brazil? Canada? Egypt?

Icleand

Jon BALDURSSON

Bjarni Holmar EINARSSON

Sigurbjorn HARALDSSON

Thorlakur JONSSON

Adalsteinn JORGENSEN

Magnus Eidur MAGNUSSON

Bjorn EYSTEINSSON

NPC: Jafet OLAFSSON

I have no strong reason to pick Iceland but after having their banks collapse they need some cheering up.  Besides I think most of the population plays bridge in the winter.  All my friends seem to be going their on vacation and they love it.

Does Your Teacher Measure Up? – Criteria for ABTA Teacher of the Year

September 26th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

This year there will be regional winners who will be the subfinalists for the Teacher of the Year award which will be given out at the spring NABC ABTA meeting in Memphis.

The quality of the teachers who participate in this event each year is amazing.  So does your teacher measure up?  To be eiligible:

Eligibility:

• Bridge teacher for at least 5 years
• A member of the ACBL OR ABA
• A member of ABTA or prepared to join the ABTA if nominated
• Must teach at least 75 hours a year (e.g. 2 hours a week for 38 weeks or 3 hours a week for 25 weeks) etc.

Criteria for Nomination

A. Teaching excellence (50%)

• student response or recommendations
• percentage of students who join organized bridge games
• quality of material used in courses especially personally developed material
• recommendation of other teachers or bridge professionals
• rationale provided by nominator(s)
• original written material used in teaching students

B. Innovation (25%)

• Demonstration of innovation associated with bridge teaching or bridge promotion including but not limited to:
  • Bridge teaching methods
  • Reaching out to youth
  • Teaching seniors
  • Teaching material
  • Course content and approach
  • Promotion of bridge
  • Promotion of teacher
  • Use of the Internet

C. Service To Bridge (20%)

This will be based on evidence such as:

• promotion of bridge and their own services through newsletters, websites, columns in print media, TV, or web etc.
• role in organizing events for students but also for all players such as tournaments
• establishing or participating in programs to teach bridge to young people
• all attempts to build the bridge community, encourage participation in bridge games, tournaments, online and in person, membership in the ACBL or ABA
• mentoring including mentoring students or other teachers or directors
• building local bridge clubs and bridge games
• encouraging students to participate in tournaments and to travel to them if possible
• any and all efforts which will help to promote the game of bridge and/or the services of the teacher

D. Service To The Community (5%)

• All volunteer activities but especially those related to bridge.  This could include donating services in teaching or running games
• Organizing and participating in charitable events with a focus on those associated with bridge but other charity activities will be considered.
• All efforts associated with raising money for bridge (e.g. money for youth, international teams, promotion of bridge) etc.
• Any other demonstrable activities which help the community in which that person resides whether bridge related or not and whether paid or not.

From my personal experience the teachers who become finalists have wonderfully innovative teaching techniques such as visual aids like hats, guns and stop signs.  They have many very enthusiastic students who are very willing to share with anybody their belief in their teacher including a Texas whoop.   The teaching material may borrow from many sources but it is organized and original.  They have built a bridge community around them.  They are mentors and friends to their students.  And much more …

Congratulations to all the finalists from 2010, 2011 and I look forward to meeting the 2012 class.

ABTA MPP Teacher of the Year 2012

September 23rd, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

This year there have been some exciting changes to the Teacher of the Year program and we are operating on an accelerated schedule because the award will be announced at the ABTA conference during the Spring Nationals this March in Memphis.  Joyce Penn the president sent me the press release and I am going to reproduce it as she sent it:

Making Winners out of Ordinary Players

by Joyce Penn

Announcing the 2012 ABTA Master Point Press Teacher of the Year Award

August 22, 2011 –  Does your bridge teacher get the recognition he/she deserves? Do you wish the world to know how your teacher has given you the priceless gift of bridge?  Good teachers’ passion for bridge shines through in their classroom. They present bridge material in an interesting, original way, encouraging their students to learn more and take the next step to becoming competent players. In conjunction with Master Point Press, the American Bridge Teachers Association (ABTA) will present the third annual “Teacher of the Year” plaque and cash award, next March in Memphis, at the ABTA’s 2012 Conference, March 13 – March 16, 2012.

Students who hold their teacher in high regard, who feel their teacher cares about their successes and non-successes at the bridge table, are encouraged to nominate their teacher for this prestigious award.  Here’s the opportunity for your teacher to be recognized as one of the world’s best.

A total of five finalists will be chosen from the nominees received, with one from each geographic quadrant of the United States, plus one from Canada. A good teacher is a very important person who stays updated with bridge’s constantly changing methods, and enthusiastically shares his/her love of the game with students.  Students should submit a few words of praise for him/her in consideration for this prestigious award.

Nominations are being accepted from September 1, 2011 until January 31, 2012.  Please submit one or two paragraphs explaining why your teacher deserves consideration. Nominees must have at least 5 years teaching experience and teach at least 75 hours per year.

Master Point Press is the world’s largest publisher of bridge books and bridge eBooks, including “Bridge With Bells & Whistles.” Authored by Mary Ann Dufresne and Marion Ellingsen, it is the winner of the 2011 ABTA Book of the Year.  ABTA, the professional bridge teachers organization, includes members from the US, Canada, Australia, England, Greece & Japan, and enables teachers to share creative ideas, participate in online discussion groups, and helps them enrich their skills.

Submissions may be emailed to Joyce Penn, Chairman, at jpenn@columbus.rr.com or sent to 2800 Squires Ridge, Columbus, OH 43220. Joyce, past president of the ABTA, encourages students to nominate their teachers who fill their classroom with joy and teach their art with warmth and passion. Each submission will be acknowledged. Past nominees are eligible for re-submission.

World Championship Conventions

September 23rd, 2011  ~  linda  ~  2 Comments 

Are you interested in the systems and conventions being played by some of the top players in the world.  Convention cards have now  been filed for this year’s world championships.  Its a big job to go through all the conventions cards for the 22 teams playing in the Bermuda Bowl.  Since there are generally three pairs that adds up to 66 cards.

But I am going to at least get a start.   I am just going to look for the highlights and interesting ideas.  The two USA teams seemed like a good starting point.  Their systems should be mostly familiar to me.

Starting with USA 1 the first card I look at is Fleisher-Kamil.  Their WBF convention card is a mere 6 pages.  They are playing 2/1 with 5 card majors.  If you try this I find that starting with the second page is easiest.  It includes all of the opening bids, what they mean and the main responses.  I have noticed over the years a great increase in transfer advances/responses.  Fleisher-Kamil play transfer responses to 1♣ , with 1♦ and 1♥ as transfers showing the nest up major and 1S denying a major.   They keep the spirit of this approach in competition.  They also play transfers over 1♦ -1M.

I note with interest that they have added a version of multi using 2♦ as a bad weak 2 (a version of multi) in a major in 2♥ /2♠ as a sound weak two.  I like 2♥ /2♠ to show 5 in the major and 5 in the minor and I would miss that but I can see the value of this approach too.  They play multi-Landy against notrump.  This seems have become the most popular approach among many experts in the last few years.

They play third and fifth as their opening leads against suit contracts and fourth against notrump.  That does seem to be a popular approach at least in North America.

Levin and Weinstein also play 2/1 with a strong notrump but they use 2♦ as Flannery.  They also use Namyats with 3NT as a single suited minor preempt.  They have what they call reverse Flannery responses to one of a minor where jump shit responses show five spades (in one case six) and four hearts and worse than a 2/1.  I have played a variant of that and I think it works quite well.  Good-bad notrump, transfer advances of overcalls and over one of a major double.  Okay here is a convention I have never seen: “Thrump Doubles”.  Here is how they describe them:

In auctions where there is no room below 3NT (for example after a 3♠ overcall), DBL says “bid 3NT with a stopper.” Auctions where this applies include:

• Good/Bad 2NT auctions where opponents bid at the 3 level
• Following a T/O DBL, when partner has made a free bid and the opponents
• bid at the 3-level
• 1m-(1M)-2m/om-(3M)-DBL
• 1m-(1M)-DBL-(3M)-DBL
• 1m-(1M)-any-(2M)-3m-(3M)-DB

Stansby and Martel play 2/1 with weak notrump (12-14) and Flannery and hey, unlike the other two pairs they lead fourth highest.

World Championships October 15-29th

September 20th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  1 Comment 

IT won’t be all that long before top bridge players from around the world head to Veldhoven.  Ray and I decided that we would not go to the world championships this year a while back but I always get a pang as the time gets close.  So I decided to check out a bit of what I was missing.  Apparently Veldhoven is town in the southern Netherlands near Eindhoven.  You would fly into Eindhoven Airport which is the second largest airport in the Netherlands.  October weather looks pleasant with a high of 58F and a low around 50F.  So take your sweaters and jackets.  Eindhoven is a unviersity town (among other things).  So there are a lot of different festivals, clubs and the like.  Don’t miss the lightbulb museum among others.  And of course ,,,

Veldhoven 2005

Here are some typical Dutch dishes: Patat (French fries served with mayonnaise and various other things).  Last time I was in the Netherlands I got some of these from a cart but skipped the mayonnaise.    Haring: Raw herring with onions.  This also seems to be typical Canadian Jewish food except in Canada we pickle the herring.    Erwtensope is a thick peas soup with vegetables and sausages.

For dessert I remember having Stoopwafel a cookie with waffles and caramel filling.  For more try Tourism Holland.

I should be just back from Sarasota and I plan to watch and probably comment on many sessions.  So focusing on the Bermuda Bowl today  I have a quick look at the participants:

There are 22 teams participating.  They are listed by zone.  Zone 1 includes: Bulgaria, Iceland, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden.  Zone 2 is Canada and two USA teams.  Zone 3 is Brazil and Chile.  Zone 4 India and Pakistan.  Zone 5 is Guadeloupe.  One can’t help wondering if zone 5 should really be a zone at all.  Zone 6 is China, Japan and Singapore, Zone 7 Australia and New Zealand and Zone 8, Egypt and South Africa.  While the Bermuda Bowl is not the exclusive event it once was there are only a small number of teams that are completely outclassed and a few that will need a big surprise to make the final 8.

The USA has two outstanding teams either of whom could make the final.   Italy has its usual strong team with names like Bocchi, Duboin, Lauria and so on.  Poland looks strong.  I will give some thought to picking to some handicapping.

Of course I will be watching USA 1 Seniors with our own Bobby Wolff playing with Dan Morse along with Lew Finkel, Arnold Fisher, Richard Schwartz and Fred Hamilton.  I hope Judy will be sending us regular blogs.

In my next blog about the WC I thought it would be fun to look at some convention cards.

The Dog Didn’t Eat My Book Review

September 12th, 2011  ~  linda  ~  No Comments 

I decided to finish (for now) discussion of the Rodwell Files with this final blog.  I am still reading the book but I am almost finished.  However, finishing the book is probably a misnomer since I will be reading it again quite soon.

Having gone far into the book I wanted to provide an overall picture of what I think of the book, its strengths and yes, its weaknesses too.  I want to talk about my favorite parts, some suggestions to the publisher and some advice to other readers.  I know that everyone will understand that I am not an impartial reviewer but I still want to share my thinking.

Overall I think the book is amazing, no quibbles at all.  It takes card playing to a new and higher level.  It soars.  It is not a book designed as a textbook though.  It is a book of ideas and techniques.  This approach has its good points and bad points.  The good, the very good is that in every one of its almost 400 pages there are new ideas and new things to think about, especially after the first part of the first section.  You could pick this book up, open it at random and you will find something new and interesting and likely a beautiful hand to illustrate the point.  There is so much that is interesting about this book, it is almost overwhelming.

What I miss is the exercises.  In the end I wanted to practice the techniques.  I wanted to try things for myself.  I didn’t want to wait for the Rodwellian intrafinesse to appear at the table.

Suggestion to publisher: how about a companion book with lots of examples to practice and analysis by Eric.  It’s important that Eric do the analysis because he throws in lots of things I wouldn’t think about and goes beyond illustrating the point being demonstrated.   Free downloads of practice deals would be great too.

The best part of the book for me is the parts that teach general concepts and general techniques.  They are ideas that make me think and they often are the opposite of conventional thinking.  Let’s take the example of forcing the short trump hand.  Most of the time when you are defending using a forcing game you force the long hand to ruff.  But Eric looks at the times where you should force the short hand to ruff.  And as he walks through them and I start to think about it they are not all that unlikely.

Of course then I think the best part for me is the new concepts and terminology to go with it.  Now I can think about gouging and pushers and trick packages and restocking.  It is a new way of thinking.

Suggestion to publisher: Could you make the glossary at the end of the book a free download.

Of course there is the third best part of the book sections like the “Do’s of Cardplay” that provide checklists to think about.  Of course if I did all of the items on the checklist every time I play dummy (or defended) I would set the record for late penalties and late plays trying to do things like “reconstruct BOTH unseen hands”, checking out minor options, checking your work for errors… twice.  But I know there are deals where I will walk through many of the elements of the checklist and probably a bunch of other hands where I will wish I had.

I do have a few quibbles.  I find most of the first section of the book moves too fast for intermediate (advanced?) players and isn’t all that much use to me (almost a “real” expert).  The pages might have been better spent to provide some more examples and perhaps even a bit more structure later on.  Not every example really illustrates the point being described perfectly.  And the aforementioned one about the lack of practice exercises.  But never the less this is one of the truly great books on card play.  It is a historic book.  It will sit on my bedside table and on my ipad for a long long time.

In the past I have done a fair number of book reviews and of course I am an avid bridge book reader.  I can only think of one or two that come close to this one in new ideas about cardplay (Adventures in Card Play), in the sheer number of new ideas, none. (I can’t think of a one to compare this with) and in just enjoyment of the analysis of the hands (My Favorite 52 and many Reese Books).

Because of the sheer size and depth of this book I many readers may chose to buy and read the book in parts.  The ebook is sold in parts on Amazon, Apple, Kobo etc. and on the www.ebridgebooks.com websites.

Happy reading.  And thanks Eric.  I am so glad you shared your ideas with the bridge world.

I would be interested in hearing comments from other readers.  If you like you can leave a comment here or email me at linda@masterpointpress.com.  I do have some influence with the publisher and I can probably get him to provide a few downloads and such.