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The Joy of Marital Swiss Teams is written for lovers of bridge, advanced players who appreciate the logic of the game as much as they value winning – well, almost as much as they value winning. The format employs that introduced by The Bridge World magazine, in which a match consists of seven challenging problems posed within a team game setting. You, the reader, see only one hand when you are asked to bid, and only two hands when you declare or defend. After the play is over, you see the entire four-hand layout, and you can see why the recommended actions were successful. At the end of each of the nine matches, you compare results with your teammates in a post-mortem discussion. Editorial comments and questions may enrich those discussions.
The author was involved in most of them either as player or kibitzer. The problems were sometimes resolved successfully at the table, but usually were not. I chose problems for inclusion because subsequent thought revealed there was a logical basis for getting them right. As one of my partners/opponents in the games from which the deals originated, multiple World Champion John Swanson, likes to say, "There’s always a clue." John edited the analyses in the book; not surprisingly, he found several improvements on my suggested plays. Occasionally I changed the cards a little so that only exact play is rewarded. It’s surprising how infrequently that was necessary. The card gods have a mysterious way of dealing out challenging but soluble problems.
I do not sell the book directly. Copies are available from Amazon.com.
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