A Book

For Serious Bridge Players

Take your place in bridge’s hot seat.  You are third hand, facing an expert declarer. Partner’s lead is on the table, and so is the dummy. You are preparing to make the critical first play. Are you thinking along the right lines? What arrangements of the cards are consistent with the information available to you? How can you determine the correct play?

The key elements in successful defense are visualization and communication.  These elements go hand in hand, and they are greatly abetted by the system of parity leads introduced in this book. Using a signaling concept already familiar to all bridge players, you will be able to infer crucial information about the unseen hands. You will be ready to focus on how to help partner and hinder declarer.

Try this problem I recently encountered. Partner leads a low heart against their game:
 

You cannot answer these questions definitively unless you know which heart spot partner led and what that card connotes. So think about how you would handle each of the possible spot cards using your favorite carding methods. When you've reached your decisions, look at my solution.