Customer Reviews

Take All Your Chances at Bridge

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is Kantar at his best. You are given a hand without the answer, just the question. After thinking about the hand and planning the play or trying to find the winning line, there is a one page discussion of the hand. This is a wonderful way to learn. I keep re reading them, like I keep redoing the hands that are on the Lawrence CDs hoping that I learn to recognize the issues in them. When I can get more of them (and recognize them at the table) I will be a better bridge player. Just ordered a new copy for my wife's birthday present.

I have about 150 bridge books and read many of them.
But I think this book "Take All Your Chances at Bridge"
by Eddie Kantar is the best book, not just one of the best,
on "declarer play". My thinking is this book is highly
recommeneded for intermdiate and advanced bridge players.

The book contains a collection of 100 bridge hands and asks you to plan your play. Then it shows you what you should have done. It is analogous to having 100 daily newspaper bridge columns. The examples are challenging. There is a sprinkling of percentages shown in many of the examples on the chances. The book does not explain how to calculate these percentages on your own. The book only minimally generalizes the examples into categories. I find this bottom-up approach to be lacking. Unless I happen to have the exact same hand in a bridge game (and remember it), I have not been taught how to evaluate bridge hands that I will face. If you are like me and want a top-down teaching method, then this is not the book for you.

I believe of all of the books written by Eddie Kantar this has to rate near the top if not the top book of all. I have read it 3 times through and learned something each time. What he suggests to do in certain situations has proven valuable to me in play.

This is one of the best Bridge books I have read

I will be rereading it many times

so much in there, concise and easy to read

E Kantar is our guru in bridge forever.Since 1980 we read Kantar.
In the deeper south of America (rio gallegos,Argentina)we play,we learn,we enjoy
the books of E Kantar.

I recommend this book for beginners and low intermediates, not for advanced intermediates. It focuses on getting the reader to look for additional chances to make a trick before taking a finesse.
For example - before taking a finesse is there another suit you can try to establish by ruffing, or seeing if a key card drops. Such as Ax opposite KJxx you can ruff once and hopefully the Q drops, if not take a different finesse. A few routine end plays are included.

I'm not knocking the book, its fine, but its pretty routine (if you have read a lot of bridge books). Kantar has better books even though this is ok for its target audience. If you are intermediate+ this book is too basic for you.