Book review. "Moments of Truth at the Bridge Table" - R.Jayaram

Batsford, 2003

This is one of three books by the author, an Indian bridge writer. The hands he has chosen are from the actual praxis of Indian experts in major tournaments. The analysis is the author's own, except where attributed to other experts.

Oddly, while the hands are themselves interesting, the analyses range from the ridiculous to the sublime. On the very first hand, where a 3-2 split is proven and the queen is outstanding after one round, when righty (who has three to left's two) follows with a small one one round two, the author avers that the probablity of the queen being with lefty has changed from 2/5 to 1/3. Every serious student of the game knows that the a priori odds are not changed with RHO following with a small one to the second round.

The bridge proof-reading, as opposed to the language-proofreading, is terrible. On one hand the defender is given the six and the four spots of spades, and the text says the declarer plays on trick two the four of spades. As it happens, this does not change the outcome of the hand or the analysis in a material way, but is distracting.

A final complaint. There must be tons of Indian bridge material. For writers like Jayaram and Paranjape to rehash the same hands from tourneys that we have read about seems like there is only a little material to go around, which is blatantly untrue.