Customer Reviews

How to Defend a Bridge Hand

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Bill Root's "How to Defend a Bridge Hand" is an excellent book that teaches one to learn the foundamentals of defence in bridge. It covers all the important facets of the defence. The quiz after each chapter and the 36 random quiz are useful for one to review the materials covered in the book. No doubt one will benefit a lot from reading this book. The only concern for me is that the problems presented in the book and quiz are all with the goal preset: you need to defeat the contract by "exactly" one trick. I would like to see the book include problems involving, e.g., matchpoint considerations and judgement on when to take the tricks (sometimes setting the contract is not the goal of the hand)

All the basics are covered, with LOTS of examples and non-double dummy problems. It *WILL* take you a while to go through the book, but its well worth it. The book doesn't focus on difficult defense, like the Kelsey Killing Defense at Bridge books. It focuses on general principles, and signaling. A nice touh is a number of different signaling methods are presented at the end of the book. The reader can become familiar with what they may face, and decide what signals to use.


Roots book on Declarer Play is a good beginner/intermediate level book. His book on Conventions is excellent, despite not having all the newest conventions.

There's no question that William Root knows what he's writing about, but I found this book rather dry and uninspiring. Still, it's well organized and formatted with lots of example hands and reading it would certainly be of some value to the improving player.

I'd recommend "Card Play Technique" by Victor Mollo instead.

An outstanding bridge book - one of the best ever written for novice to intermediate players on bridge defense. I am certain that my defensive play improved markedly from thorough study of this book. The material is well organized and develops the various techniques effectively with numerous examples, explaining the correct reasoning underlying each. Quizzes in each chapter and the random topic "final exam" make sure the reader has absorbed the material. You'll find yourself retaking the quizzes repeatedly.

Any player below expert level will not be disappointed in this book.

A major contribution to bridge literature. Deals comprehensively with the subject. Written on exactly the right level. 1994 Bridge Book of the Year.

A major contribution to bridge literature. Deals comprehensively with the subject. Written on exactly the right level. 1994 Bridge Book of the Year.