Monster Book of Basic Declarer Play

by Stephen Cashmore and Dave Huggett

A 'monster' collection of exercises in declarer play for bridge beginners. Written for newcomers to the game, it consists of 240 deals where very basic techniques will bring home the contract. It gives beginners the chance to practise counting up tricks and losers, planning the order in which to play the cards, and working out where extra tricks are to come from. By working their way through this book, beginners will learn how to focus on the main...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0713488824
• ISBN13: 9780713488821
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: B.T. Batsford
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

An excellent tool...

Most bridge textbooks concentrate on bidding, with little attention paid to what to do if you win the auction. This modest book is different: it presents 240 sample hands (declarer & dummy)and invites you to plan the play; then, on the reverse side of the page, shows how to analyze the hand and suggests how to play it in order to bring home the contract. The problems are all within the skills of beginners; in fact, the authors suggest that if you've been playing for more than about 18 months, this book is too elementary for you.

Monster Book

This is a great practice book after you have played awhile and have read books such as Audrey Grant's Play of the hand, Eddie Kantar's Introduction to Declarer Play, Caroline Sydnor's Bridge Made Easy: Book Three How to Win More Tricks, Barbara Seagram's 25 Ways to Take More Tricks as Declarer, and Eddie Kantar Teaches Topics in Declarer Play at Bridge. The book includes 80 problems each at NT and suit play. These are followed by 80 problems as a followup to the first 160 hands. You count your tricks and then plan the play after the lead or leads from defenders. The good plan is then shown and explained with all four hands showing. Excellent practice of the techniques that you have studied in the listed introductory books. It is good for high novices, low intermediates and maybe even middle intermediates. While the first two sections start out with rather easy hands, they get more difficult as your confidence goes up.