Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #577994 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 151 pages

Customer Reviews

The door to a new world
The author's gift is such that, by the time I'd read his book, I wondered why anyone would have bothered to write such a mundane work on such a trivial subject. If it's not clear, that's supposed to be a recommendation.

Laderman's book only covers the most basic of squeezes in any depth, and a couple of chapters at the end on more complicated variants have little practical use, but this book has made me look at bridge hands a different way. As well as counting winners and losers, I now start by counting menaces.

It's not obvious that I'm a better bridge player for it, and I'm sure in the coming months I'll be frequently abused for trying for an obscure squeeze when I could have just set up a suit. But that's a natural part of learning, and certainly not the author's fault.

The worst thing I can say about this book is its terminology is needlessly unique - the author deciding for some reason to rename 'menaces' to 'threat cards' etc. The best thing I can say is that it's made me enjoy this game even more. And I can't think of a more positive claim than that.

Best place to start
Julian Laderman's A Bridge to Simple Squeezes is the best place to start for anyone wanting to get to grips with the mechanics of squeeze play technique. The book is particularly good in teaching the reader how to spot the signs that a squeeze is possible and identify the threat cards needed to bring about those squeezes. He also identifies the four common errors that declarers often make which destroy all chance of a squeeze. Most of the book is dedicated to analysing "simple" squeezes but this second edition goes on to look at double squeezes, criss-cross squeezes and so on. Having taken on board all this book has to offer, the reader can then move on to other squeeze publications with greater confidence, such as David Bird's Bridge Squeezes for Everyone and Hugh Kelsey's massive tome on squeezes.