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Title: The Complete Book on Overcalls in Contract Bridge by Mike Lawrence ISBN: 0-939460-07-6 Publisher: Devyn Press Pub. Date: 01 June, 1979 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.95

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Average Customer Rating: 5 (5 reviews)

Rating: 5
Summary: Don't talk, walk
Comment: Mike Lawrence must be a direct descendant of Sherlock Holmes! He uses every scrap of information available on any particular hand/auction, and uses these to arrive at the best bid to make. And it is because of this attention to detail that this (and his other books) are intended for those players in the intermediate or advanced category.

Interesting to place this book's approach alongside more modern bridge textbooks. Take the likes of Cohen's 'Law of Total Tricks'. It expounds the 'Law' and then illustrates how a player should use it via a modest selection of example hands. By contrast, Mike Lawrence bombards the reader with every conceivable hand and explains (albeit in logical order) how you should be thinking about these along the way.

This hardly SEEMS a sound teaching approach: the type is small, there is loads of repetition (Lawrence admits it), and the 'quizzes' at the end of each section are not organised in a 'reader-friendly' way.

But where this book succeeds and some modern books fail, is curiously in its insistence upon looking at each hand in a strictly individual way, as opposed to selling out to easy mnemonics or rules.

While more modern books (take one of Eddie Kantar's books on defence, which I also think are excellent) are nicely presented, contain witty 'after-dinner' asides, and have an interactive feel, their neatness sometimes makes me feel that bridge is all clearcut rules and decisions, hard for the beginner, easy for the expert.

But Mike Lawrence seems to be experiencing real pain on many of his example deals! You will frequently see him write, 'I don't know what to do with this hand', not because he's not a good player, but because he understands the difference, for a bridge player, between 'knowing the path' and 'walking the path'.

The writer of this book won't sit on his pedestal and lecture you with rules, he will walk the path WITH you. If you will take the time to let him lead you, it should prove time well spent.

Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent advice on overcalls
Comment: The classic book on overcalls. Excellent advice on non-vulnerable overcalls at the one level and on which overcalls to avoid. Newer players might want to start with Edgar Kaplan's Competitive Bidding in Modern Bridge

Rating: 5
Summary: Insightful and well written
Comment: This book is probably the best book on bridge ever written. There is so much insight in this book that you will have to re-read it time and time again each time adding to your own insight in not only overcalling but the game as a whole. The style is lucid sometimes nonchalant; Lawrence gives insight into his own considerations when making bidding decisions and makes it clear that many decisions are not absolute. But following the logic and type of arguments he presents you will get more and more decisions right. I strongly recommend this book to every bridge player who aspires to improve his or her game.

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