Modern Bridge Defence - Eddie Kantar

If someone was going to lend you a bridge book, where the text consisted entirely of hundreds of questions, such as ‘which card do you play now?’ or ‘which card do you play next’? (250 pages of it, no less) you might be forgiven for declining the kind offer. Talk of ‘mind numbing’, jaw droppingly tedious subject matter! Surely it would take a writer of the very first rank to transform such intractable material into a fine, eminently readable exposition of his subject? Indeed it would, and, of course, in Kantar you have just such an author.

Put aside for the moment the book’s entertainment value. (Kantar is ‘laugh out loud’ funny). Here is the target audience, in terms purely of its instructional content.

• Beginners/Learners/Improvers: No
• New to Club Bridge (large, well established Clubs): yes, as a future reference manual for dipping into occasionally. This group of players would be totally overwhelmed by trying to plough straight through it.
• Average to good Club standard: once again, their recommended ‘Bible’ for this side of their game. The publishers blurb finally comes into its own. “Cannot fail to improve your standard of bridge”. For once, true!
• Top Club/Tournament players: a nice refresher course, perhaps?
• Experts: (no). This book is largely concerned with basic defensive carding, and card rank selection, admittedly taken to quite a high level of skill.

Virtually all the plays will be second nature to the expert, or quickly seen at the table.

Not, of course, that your really top players care to be advised on their bridge reading. If they do any, that is.

The following couple of suggestions are addressed to the main target audience: average to good players, in the hope they may modify in a small way their approach to the book.

It is worth taking a text like this really slowly. Steam through it like a novel and you will be completely wasting your time. Several weeks, at least, or possibly months for the less advanced player is a recommended timescale. Reading just a little at a time and evaluating the answers. Seems obvious, doesn’t it? Yet you would be surprised how rarely this advice is taken by impatient readers. Then ask them to quote just one play from memory, and they are stuck. [Ambitious players just have to remember that, to get anywhere in this game, a lot of basic spadework has to be done. Otherwise you will find yourself still carving the defence and mangling the dummy at every turn].

To extract maximum advantage, a bit of extra work is needed from the reader. This is especially true in those cases where you don’t know the answer at once. In some examples, the question needs dissecting in greater detail than Kantar provides.//

 For example, in Chapter 3: The Third Man. You are East in a H contract. West leads 4 of Spades. Dummy goes down with Spades Q, 8, 3. You hold A 9 2. What do you play? Yes, the A, not the 9. Kantar explains that only if you hold J or 10, is it right to insert that card (the J or 10, that is) rather than play the A. True; but Kantar does not say why. Time for some homework! You should get a pack of cards out, and put on a table the possible layouts (e.g. West has K J to 4, (you can see the 2 and the 3), West has K to 4, West has J to 4, and West has 10 to 4).

 The 9 or the A always result in the same number of tricks for declarer; one or two as the case may be. Just a question of when declarer makes them. (No space here to consider the ramifications of West holding a 3 card suit).

 So why is the play of the A mandatory?

 Simply because the play of the 9 concedes a tempo, and this may be significant in the context of the defensive plan. Or not. So, you are advised to dig around a bit. You will find it pays off.

 Kantar is very enjoyable to read. I hope you enjoy the jokes and the humorous remarks.

Kantar's Bridge Defence has been in print for 40 years: he is widely considered the best writer on Defence ever. Modern Bridge Defence(1999) is an update  of the 1975 material.

Modern Bridge Defence won ‘Bridge Book of the Year’ in America. Deservedly so.

‘Antonio Contin’

May 2015