Rating: 
Summary: An important book
Review: A familiarity with "The Law" will help you make the right competitive decision more often at the table. I recommend this book to any player interested in winning more of those partscore battles.Just don't fall into the trap of obeying "The Law" blindly (as many players do). It's intended to be a useful guideline that can *improve* your judgement: it isn't meant to *replace* your judgement.
Rating:
Summary: An important book
Review: A familiarity with "The Law" will help you make the right competitive decision more often at the table. I recommend this book to any player interested in winning more of those partscore battles. Just don't fall into the trap of obeying "The Law" blindly (as many players do). It's intended to be a useful guideline that can *improve* your judgement: it isn't meant to *replace* your judgement.
Rating: 
Summary: Required reading for all serious bridge players
Review: Before reading this: I open 1 Spade, 2 Heart overcall,
partner raises to 2S, RHO raises to 3 Hearts. I auto-
matically bid 3S, just as Pavlov's dog automatically
salivated. Down one. 3H would have gone down one.
Oops. Wrong guess. Sorry, partner. Next round, I
pass 3H and it makes. 3S would have made. Oops.
Wrong guess. Sorry, partner.
After reading this: I look less at how many high-card
points I have and more at how many hearts and spades I
have. Do I have S Q9542 H QJ7 or S KQJ92 H 432? Do I
have 5 or 6 spades? Now I bid 3 Spades when it's right
and pass when it's right.
Buy two copies and give your partner one. Hide it from
all opponents. The IMPs will now dribble to your team,
five or six IMPs at a time. Likewise, so will the
matchpoints: 9x on 12 top instead of 2x on 12 top, again
and again on these unspectacular hands.
Rating:
Summary: Required reading for all serious bridge players
Review: Before reading this: I open 1 Spade, 2 Heart overcall,
partner raises to 2S, RHO raises to 3 Hearts. I auto-
matically bid 3S, just as Pavlov's dog automatically
salivated. Down one. 3H would have gone down one.
Oops. Wrong guess. Sorry, partner. Next round, I
pass 3H and it makes. 3S would have made. Oops.
Wrong guess. Sorry, partner.
After reading this: I look less at how many high-card
points I have and more at how many hearts and spades I
have. Do I have S Q9542 H QJ7 or S KQJ92 H 432? Do I
have 5 or 6 spades? Now I bid 3 Spades when it's right
and pass when it's right.
Buy two copies and give your partner one. Hide it from
all opponents. The IMPs will now dribble to your team,
five or six IMPs at a time. Likewise, so will the
matchpoints: 9x on 12 top instead of 2x on 12 top, again
and again on these unspectacular hands.
Rating:
Summary: To bid or not to bid the law of total tricks
Review: Good partnerships will have sophisticated mechanisms for finding the right contract when given free rein of the bidding, but in reality the majority of bridge hands lead to competitive auctions. With each side interfering with the other, the situation suddenly becomes much less clear. After reading this book, you will no longer have to rely completely on mere guesswork and intuition to decide whether to bid or not to bid. Larry Cohen introduces and expounds upon the Law of Total Tricks, a single principle which will allow you to estimate the possible scores resulting from almost any competitive auction. He describes some of the corollaries of the Law, as well as some good conventions that make use of the Law. These will improve the game of anybody not already familiar with such maxims as "bid to the number of trump your side has" and "when in doubt bid four spades over four hearts." Even so, this book feels somehow incomplete. It does a good job of conveying the basic idea of the Law, giving examples of its application in relatively straightforward situations. But only in the last two chapters does Cohen begin to describe the adjustments that must be made in situations where the Law is not completely accurate. Furthermore, he doesn't really cover what to do in situations where the Law predicts ambiguous results: when bidding on might produce a better or worse result than passing, depending on the play of the hand. In these cases Cohen leaves us once again to guesswork and intuition. Despite these faults, this book is essential because it does at least reduce the amount of guesswork to which the bridge player must resort in contested auctions.
Rating:
Summary: An essential read for serious bridge players
Review: Good partnerships will have sophisticated mechanisms for finding the right contract when given free rein of the bidding, but in reality the majority of bridge hands lead to competitive auctions. With each side interfering with the other, the situation suddenly becomes much less clear. After reading this book, you will no longer have to rely completely on mere guesswork and intuition to decide whether to bid or not to bid. Larry Cohen introduces and expounds upon the Law of Total Tricks, a single principle which will allow you to estimate the possible scores resulting from almost any competitive auction. He describes some of the corollaries of the Law, as well as some good conventions that make use of the Law. These will improve the game of anybody not already familiar with such maxims as "bid to the number of trump your side has" and "when in doubt bid four spades over four hearts." Even so, this book feels somehow incomplete. It does a good job of conveying the basic idea of the Law, giving examples of its application in relatively straightforward situations. But only in the last two chapters does Cohen begin to describe the adjustments that must be made in situations where the Law is not completely accurate. Furthermore, he doesn't really cover what to do in situations where the Law predicts ambiguous results: when bidding on might produce a better or worse result than passing, depending on the play of the hand. In these cases Cohen leaves us once again to guesswork and intuition. Despite these faults, this book is essential because it does at least reduce the amount of guesswork to which the bridge player must resort in contested auctions.
Rating:
Summary: How can a bridge player NOT read this book?
Review: I don't understand how anyone could intelligently win a matchpoint game without understanding the LAW. This isn't just a way of improving your competitive bidding; the LAW is the whole theory underlying this area of bridge. The author's presentation of the concepts is illustrated with numerous examples and exercises to allow the reader to quickly absorb the ideas. My advice to my partners: know this book inside out. My request of my opponents: pay no attention!
Rating:
Summary: To bid or not to bid the law of total tricks
Review: I got this book at the local library and read it cover to cover. It made a big difference in the next knock-out event we entered as we won our first two matches and lost the third only as a result of not following the "law" on the last hand which cost us 13 imps (we lost the match by 3 imps). This book is a must for any serious duplicate bridge player.
Rating:
Summary: How can a bridge player NOT read this book?
Review: If your bridge library were extremely small, one MUST item would be The Law of Total Tricks. It's a gem, one that will change the way you think at bridge and one that will help you make those tough part-score and higher competitive decisions which are ordinarily such "guess work". This book will help you evaluate your bidding options with much greater assurance and accuracy.
Rating:
Summary: How can you do better?
Review: If your bridge library were extremely small, one MUST item would be The Law of Total Tricks. It's a gem, one that will change the way you think at bridge and one that will help you make those tough part-score and higher competitive decisions which are ordinarily such "guess work". This book will help you evaluate your bidding options with much greater assurance and accuracy.
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