REVIEWS (from CANADIAN MASTER POINT)

To Bid or Not to Bid by Larry Cohen.

Reviewed by Ray Lee.

It is in competitive situations that most hands are won and lost, and more than one big-caliber pairs event has turned on the decision to bid one more or to defend. Is there some way that we can learn to guess right more often in these key situations? The answer may lie in the Law of Total Tricks. an empirical method of determining the likely number of tricks available on a hand to the two sides.

The Law has been referred to in various articles and even rated a whole chapter in Kit Woolsey's superb book " Matchpoints", but now it forms the main subject of this new book. Cohen takes the average player through a straightforward exposition of the Law itself (which relates to the total trump holdings of the two sides), with lots of examples. He applies it to competitive decisions from the 2-level through the 5-level, and shows how and why it works so well, most of the time. Note that "most of the time". Cohen makes no bones about the Law being a competitive panacea --be points out that bridge is a percentage game, and that the Law is no exception, If you take the indicated action, you will be right most of the time, and certainly more often than you are now, which is what most of us would like to get out of reading the book. But you'll also come back to partners with the odd -530. This is an honest account of the Law, warts and al1. Cohen describes some of the kinds of hands on which the Law may not work properly. and recommends some evaluation methods that may allow you to reach more accurate decisions on these.

Buried amongst all this are two fascinating chapters dealing with modern competitive bidding methods and a number of sophisticated conventional ideas. These require much discussion and are not for casual Partnerships.

Larry Cohen is the winner of a dozen national titles in the last ten years and he certainly writes about the matchpoint game with great credibility; his first book is a fine effort. Unlike many self-published works its smooth. almost error-free text bears
the hallmark of professional editing and is well organized with good chapter-end summaries and quizzes. Add it to your bridge library and I'l1 guarantee you'll be reading it again and again.