Over the years I have trained many national teams, preparing them for championship events. Dummy play has been one of the most attractive and favoured elements. A player who wants to be on a par with the best must have extensive knowledge. An outstanding player should know within a few seconds all the technical problems he may encounter on a specific deal — know, rather than have to look for them and then analyse. Training in dummy play is similar to learning mathematics. You have to master patterns and techniques, then the analytical way of thinking.



    This novel book on declarer play portrays a Virtual European Championships with you, dear reader, as a contestant! The techniques required to play a bridge hand are similar to those for driving a car. A beginner has to concentrate on changing gear, accelerating, breaking and signalling at the proper time. An experienced king of the highways performs these actions automatically and can therefore concentrate better on the road. The ability to foresee the response time of other drivers requires further expertise and the same thing applies to playing out the hand. How can you achieve the expertise of a “king of a bridge table”? The best solution is to acquire so much knowledge of good dummy play that you can handle most technical types of hand automatically, without conscious effort. My book is dedicated to this end. You will find 170 hands covering almost all the problems that you may encounter at the table. Good luck with them!