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Bridge 12/10
The books that will appeal to bridgeurs
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    This week, as the holiday season draws ever closer, let's look at half a dozen books that might appeal to the bridge player on your gift list.
    "The Encyclopedia of Card Play Techniques at Bridge" by Guy Leve (Master Point Press) was originally written in French. The author set out to catalog every possible declarer-play and defense technique. In just over 400 pages of text, there are more than 800 deal diagrams. Surely he omitted something, but it is an impressive reference work.
    Here is a great defensive falsecard. Anyone who found it would dine out for months on the story. South is in three no-trump. West leads the heart queen, ducked by declarer, and continues with his second heart.
    South's two-no-trump overcall shows a two-no-trump opening. This agreement enjoys some popularity in Europe, where disasters with the Unusual No-Trump stick firmly in players' minds.
    With the lucky diamond layout, it looks as though declarer will collect five spades ( with the aid of the marked finesse through West's jack), two hearts and two diamonds. But when South cashed his spade king and spade queen, West dropped his jack under the queen! Suddenly South thought that the spades were breaking 3-2. And if they were, declarer could use dummy's spade ace and spade 10 as entries to lead diamonds twice through East. So South overtook his spade queen with dummy's ace ... and East's club discard told declarer that he had been duped. Now South had only three spade tricks, not five, and had to go down two.
    To order, call Baron Barclay at (800) 274-2221.
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