Killing Defence at Bridge

Rating:
Summary: Sharpen your defense - you can COUNT on it!
Review: All too often, bridge books present hands that look as if they were "set up." In order to get the right answer, you simply eliminate the "obvious" play. Not so in this book. Kelsey's hands look like those ordinary hands you might face in your local club or home game. Kelsey demonstrates that by thoroughly counting a hand (points, cards, tricks), a player can much more easily arrive at the killing defense. That's the major lesson in this book - counting, and Kelsey does a magnificent job of teaching it!

Rating:
Summary: Sharpen your defense - you can COUNT on it!
Review: All too often, bridge books present hands that look as if they were "set up." In order to get the right answer, you simply eliminate the "obvious" play. Not so in this book. Kelsey's hands look like those ordinary hands you might face in your local club or home game. Kelsey demonstrates that by thoroughly counting a hand (points, cards, tricks), a player can much more easily arrive at the killing defense. That's the major lesson in this book - counting, and Kelsey does a magnificent job of teaching it!

Rating:
Summary: A constant reference to sharpen defensive skills
Review: Kelsey's innovative approach to Bridge defence will have even the most skilled defender reading avidly. The problems and his approach to solving them are unique. The descriptions of the plays and options make entertaining reading in themselves and the experianced player is able to smile wrly on identifying their own common errors.A reference book that is great to read from cover to cover or just open at any page and try the hand. All players will come back to this book to be reminded what they have forgotten or find new ways to teach old dogs tricks.

Rating:
Summary: Bridge defence, but not for beginners
Review: This is a book for good defenders. If you don't defend well, you need to learn how to defend before you read this.

Kelsey teaches you to practice defending well. And that means counting to 13, over and over and over again. And it helps. If you are indeed a good defender, this will help make you a very good defender.

The 15 pages on opening leads helped me more than the rest of the book combined. Right after reading the chapter, I played in a bridge tournament. Declarer had bid both majors and dummy had picked hearts, a suit I held A-x in. I immediately led the low heart, stopping declarer from ruffing spades while maintaining control, and setting the contract. It was almost exactly the hand Kelsey had shown on page 61!

That's the good thing about this book. There's plenty of examples that are very similar to what you'll find in actual play. It improved my defensive play noticeably.